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4} — 


The person charging this material is re- 
sponsible for its return to the library from 
which it was withdrawn on or before the 
Latest Date stamped below. 

Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books 


are reasons for disciplinary action and may 
result in dismissal from the University. 


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 


(JI 2 8 ig74, = AUS 0 8/1981 


: _ ee y 
Ue 5 VU 4. Jv 
AUG 2 Sond 
<< S —_ 


NOV 1 0 1982 


L161— O-1096 


UVP 
} Aya 
ROY 
Sal 
+ i 


THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


een i ROM 
OF THE 


Pe ALR TE 


By BESS STREETER ALDRICH 


cAUTHOR of 


“Mother Mason,” etc. 


& 


fee kL) BURT. COMPANY 
. ‘PUBLISHERS 
New York Chicago 


Published by arran gement with D. Appleton & Company 
Printed in U. S. A. 


Copryricut, 1925, BY 
Dp. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


All rights reserved. This book, or parts 
thereof, must not be reproduced in any 
form without permission of the publishers. 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


——s 


Kt DO ! 


EP VAP AL, ey [P Pi 


bY 


—! 
2 


; 
f 


/ 


TO 
THE MEMORY OF MY HUSBAND 
CAPTAIN CHARLES S$. ALDRICH 
WHO LOVED THE HILLS THAT RIM THE PRAIRIE 


vie 
Paver) 
beat 
HAL: 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


FOREWORD 

THe RETURN 

WarRNER FIELD 

THE DIARIES 

Tue Lockep DRAWER 

SUNDAY 

THE Op GENERATION AND THE NEW 
Nancy Comes To A DECcISION 
Tue Prarrie Makes Its APPEAL 
AuicE RINELAND 

THe Brr-House 

Uncie Jup anp Aunt Biny 


PATRONS 


. Tue DiartEs Cast THEIR SHADOW 


Tue Pram Propie Live 
THE FRIENDSHIP PROGRESSES 
Mr. RinELAND DREAMS 

THE SINISTER THING STALKS 
Nancy WEAVES A TAPESTRY 


CHRISTMAS 


Vill 


CHAPTER 


XX. 
XXI. 
XXII. 
XXII. 
XXIV. 
XXV. 
XXVI. 
XXVILI. 
XXVIII. 
XXIX. 
XXX. 
XXXI. 
XXXII. 
XXXITI. 
XXXIV. 
XXXV. 
XXXVI. 


CONTENTS 


TRAGEDY AT THE BEE-HoUSE 


“T Love You!” . 


Autce RINELAND PERFECTS A PLAN 


Nancy Leaves Mapie City 
THE MEETING 

THE END OF THE STORY 
“Goop-By, Nancy” 
PAYING THE PRrIckE 

UncLe Jup Faces a Crisis 
FIVE-THIRTY O’cLOcK 

Back To THE PRAIRIE 

A Lear FALts 

APRIL SIXTH 

From THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 
AFTER THE TORNADO 

A Brown SHAWL 


Anp Now 


Maple City is in Nebraska. It is far enough from the 
Missouri River to be out of the high bluff region. It is near 
enough to lie among the low rolling hills that rise and dip 
like solidified waves of the sea. 

Wheat fields, corn fields, meadows, apple orchards, 
country roads . . . these frame Maple City. They not only 
frame it but they wander through it. Maple City children 
play in half-block pastures of timothy and bluegrass; 
gnarled old Ben Davis trees straggle down alleys; paved 
Main Sireet is but the continuation of a dusty highway 
which was once a buffalo trail; and, save at the more pre- 
tentious homes, plebeian corn patches flourish boldly in 
back yards. | 

Small and midwestern is Maple City, which in the eyes 
of many modernists is synonymous for all that is hideous 
and cramping. A handful of people, they say we are, 
knotted together like roots in the darkness. Blind souls, 
they call us—struggling spirits who can never find deliver- 
ance from sordid surroundings. Poor thinkers! Not to 
know that from tangled roots shimmering growth may 
spring to the light in beautiful winged release. 

This is the story of a group of people in Maple City— 
“tangled roots” if you will, but roots from which grew the 
fragrant flower of romance. 


anes 


Bh 
i 


ae 
"ay 


THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE | 


CHAPTER I 
THE RETURN 


N the second Friday in September the evening 
QO passenger train from the East pulled into the Maple 
City station, a little late as usual, like an old man 

with a chronic complaint which he accepts stoically. 

There was the customary stir around the station to greet 
this event. The drayman noisily backed his team into the 
platform. The agent came importantly out of the ticket 
office. A fat boy hurried along to get the mail sacks. A 
group of idlers pressed forward with a feeble show of ani- 
mation. The brakeman swung down from the Pullman 
with a flourish of arms. It was almost a ridiculous anti. 
climax that after all this commotion only one passenger 
alighted . . . a young woman in her early twenties. 

She wore a trim dark suit, a close-fitting hat and a fur, 
which gave her an appearance of slim daintiness. She gave 
no glance toward the people on the platform, but turned 
abruptly to her right and walked quickly past the baggage 
room and freight shed where a great pile of chicken crates 
gave forth feathery rustling sounds. The drayman, watch- 
ing the stranger, made a half movement toward going after 
her and explaining that Main Street was up the other way, 
thought better of it and let her go. 

The girl turned up a grassy side street without walks and 
hurried along in the soft dusk. »Ske continued to walk 

1 


e | 
aches Waa THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE | 


rapidly, tooking neither to the right nor the left as th 
she wanted no one to speak to her. By this out-of-the 
route she reached Main Street near its end and crossec 
railroad tracks where the pavement abruptly change) 

“gravel road. Only there did she stop in her swift ¥ 
__.. » turn and look back toward the business part of town. | 

She saw a few new store buildings and a stone cl 
house replacing the old brick one of her childhood. 
to her searching eyes everything else seemed the same 
yet paradoxically different. The street that had beer 
wide years before was not of unusual width. Build 
that had seemed huge were dwarfed. Far back up y 
Street through the trees she could see the old Baldwin h: 
that had once been the show place of the town. To her. 
prise the vast conservatory with its multitude of long 1 
eled glass panes was merely a big double bay window. | 
she had once wondered whether there could be any ol 
place in the world i in which so much glass was assembl 
It made her chuckle . . . to think how Time, the care! 
laundryman, shrinks many of our ideals. 

If the Baldwin place had once been the show place 
_. the town it was evidently no longer so, for up on the | 
here. formerly there had been only rank undergroy 
stood a new house, wonderfully fine and artistic for Ma 
‘City. Whose could it be? The girl, who had seen Ital 

architecture in its native setting, recognized it as belong 
to the Renaissance period. There was something out 
place about it here overlooking the sleepy maple-and-e 
bordered streets of the old midwestern town. It lool 
supercilious above thé tomfortable brick and frame hous 
a little like a sophisticated alien among provincial natir 
She turned and walked to the ai. sali Tin kling 
For a moment she loitered, seeing in memory. the 
<- who was herself drop a bent pin and line over 


[reer teh 


THE RETURN 3 


She recalled skating under it, too, with Walt Thomas, while 
team and wagon rumbled and crashed over their heads. 
2e had shivered and clung to Walt with,. “What if it’d bust 
rough?” 

This was fun. She was enjoying herself . . . was glad 


she had decided to make the trip. She passed the creamery ~ 


with its peculiar odor, half sour and half sweet, and the 
little cottages near it. She came to the Carlsons’ home and 
from the number of children in the yard decided that the 
family had been increasing with its old-time regularity. 
In the dusk she recognized the mother, Jen Carlson, on her 
front steps, but not wanting to talk to her, she hurried along, 
ostrich-like. 

She had left the town behind now and was out on the 
highway heading for the east. Night was beginning to 
settle down comfortably over the country. There was a 
hush on the twilight fields. It looked peaceful. But the 
girl knew that peace is a matter of heart and mind and not 
of location. 

She passed the cemetery. There was no fear within her 
to be out on the country road. The way was too familiar 
and homelike to call forth any forebodings. 

Several times cars passed her. When she saw their head- 


lights coming she would slip farther up into the friendly 


shadow of the cottonwoods and Lombardy poplars oe ‘ 


linedesome of the pastures: The corn rustled eerily, it 


long brown fingers beckoning to her, its low sibilant wae 
whispering to her. 


The moon swung up from the east and scattered white 


magic over the fields. It made the Lombardys look like 


the mosque towers from which the Muezzin cries ihe call to 

» Those on the right of the road cast ridiculously 
aret-like shadows toward the northwest. 

She "pated the oat corner. As she walked she threw 


| 


back her head and breathed deeply of the night dat 
peculiar mid-west combination of loam and subsoil, b 
and apple trees and clover bloom. | 
. Toward the end of the second mile, Tinkling Cree, 
Sypsy stream that seemed to wander where it desired, sj 
cross her path again. Frogs were croaking below its bi| 
_-A clammy dampness hung over it like a tangible th 
_ She crossed the white-railed bridge. 
There was the Thomas place now on her right. 
took the opposite side of the road under the Lombar) 
If Walt’s mother, Mattie Thomas, should see her, the w) 
countryside would know of her arrival. 
There it was . . . on the left. . . . Uncle Jud Moc 
place behind the cottonwoods. They did not know she | 
coming, did not believe that she would ever come agail 
Now that she was so near she began, for the first time, 
question her impulsive decision to come; questioned, - 
the possibility of their still being there, whether in fact t 
were living. Aunt Biny especially, always frail, might | 
have lived through these years. The girl’s heart was pou 
ing tumultuously. Four years is a long time. If they wi 
dead. . . » Quite suddenly the trouble she had given thy 
seemed larger and moréiieruel. 
a y the gate with its clanking ch 


Bd THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


She stood for a mome! 
on which a horseshoe swung. In the moon shadows noth 
‘seemed changed unless there was a dwarfed crumbling 1c 
about the buildings as though Time had leaned heavily uy 
them. Neng ee 

There was a light in the middle room*of the house a 
another one out in the cabin that had once been her pl. 
house. — 


_ She walked up the grassy path between the petunias. § 


wu 


knew that the blossoms were pink and lavender but, in 1 
half dusk, half moonli ‘ht, they were all white. There v 


ition ; te ee aa 
¢ : Mig! ost, et ) 4 
TEA ‘ u ‘ 


THE RETURN ] 


that same odor again . . . the mingling of loam, alfalfa, 
dust, petunias, apple trees, ... 

She placed her bag quietly by the steps and walked to © 
the sitting-room window. She had not dreamed that she 
would feel such fear and agitation, such hope that every- 
thing was as it had been. 

There they were. Two old people sat by a red-covered, 
drop-leaf table. The old man, huge of body, gaunt framed, 
gray bearded, was reading a paper. The old lady, gentle 
looking, white haired, a crutch by her side, was darning a 
stocking. A swift flash of tears swept the girl’s brown eyes 
and she put her hand to her throat to stop its quivering. 
Why, how old they looked! They had seemed only middle- 
aged the day she went away. 

She lingered for a few moments as though she could not 
bear to leave the picture. Then she took off her hat and 
dropped it by her bag. Everything hung on her reception. 
There would be no middle ground of welcome. Either they 
would be quite beside themselves with joy or ... shut the 
door upon her. 

She stepped up on the porch and with infinite care to be 
quiet lay down at the very threshold of the door and curled 
herself into a ball. Then, trembling with the import of the 
decision, she reached up and knoll sharply. 

She could hear the creaking of a chair, a heavy shuffling 
and the door above her opening. The old man looked out 
and then down at the girl by his feet. In a high squeaky 
voice that shook a little in spite of its brave attempt at fun, 
she said, “Baby on your doorstep.” 

There was a long moment in which she scarcely breathed) 
The old man seemed dazed as though the faculties of his 
mind could not adjust themselves to the peculiar situatipn. 
And then quite suddenly comprehending, he opened his 


pearded mouth and roared, great enormous laughter, and 


6 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


slapped his knee. The girl looked up impishly. “I didn’t 
really darken your doorway, Uncle Jud, did I?” Then she 
jumped up and threw her arms around him. 

The old lady who had been coming forward slowly on her 
crutch, and peering curiously at the two, suddenly realized 
the iruth and put out her hands. “Oh, my dear . . . my 
dear . . .” she said brokenly, her withered cheek against the 
fresh one. “My dear... .” 

They stood in a little group together with some laughter 
and some tears. And because people do not say all that is 
in their hearts there were no apologies and no forgiveness, 
no questions and no answers. Only tears! And laughter! 
And home! 

And then Uncle Jud Moore, whose idea of hospitality was 
to make the house very hot, was stuffing cottonwood chunks 
into the kitchen range. And Aunt Biny, her gentle face 
aglow, her worn crutch thumping over the scrubbed bareness’ 
of the kitchen floor, was getting a bite for the wayfarer to 
eat. 

The girl curled up in a deep chintz-covered chair and took 
in the scene. The long narrow room, a combination kitchen 
and dining room, was spotless. In the dining-room end 
where she sat, rag rugs lay over the slate-colored painted 
floor. There were geraniums in the window and a little 
Black Prince fuchsia that looked as gentle and frail as Aunt 
Biny. The table was set with a white cloth and shining 
heavy dishes. In the kitchen end the huge range and wood- 
box, piled high with dried chunks, took up the width of the 
room. It was an old-fashioned room, not very convenient 
and not at all artistic, but to the girl it seemed peaceful, 
homelike, and because she was troubled, a haven. 

There was much to say. Aunt Biny could not seem to get 
lunch for stopping to take in the fragrant slender charm of 
the girl curled up in the big chair. Uncle Jud asked multi- 


THE RETURN 7: 


tudinous questions, ending each one with a split stick for the 
_ range, like so many cottonwood interrogation points. 

“Yes, I’m going to stay six weeks or two months.” 

“Only two months! That ain’t half long enough.” 

“Oh, why such a short time?” Now that she was home it 
seemed that it must be for always. 

“TI have to go back to my wedding,” she said uncon- 
~cernedly. “They quite insist that I shall attend it.” 

Aunt Biny on her crutch came up to the chintz-covered 
chair and put her hand on the girl’s brown head. 

“And so you’ve met a man you love?” she said gently. 

The girl reached up and patted the worn old fingers. 
“Well . . .” she threw out her own hand in a little char- 
acteristic gesture, “I’ve met a man... .” 

It hurt Aunt Biny. It did not sound right. There was a 
note missing from the girl’s voice . . . a note that should 
have been there. 

Both of the old folks questioned her further until, quite 
_ abruptly, she changed the subject. 

“Do you have hired help living in the old sabi Uncle 
Jud? I saw a light there when I came.” | 

Uncle Jud roared and slapped his knee. “Help? Lord, 
no. A feller’s out there writin’. Rented it for a week to 
_ write in. Writes all day and all night and tramps down the 
cockleburrs in Tinklin’ Creek when he ain’t. Works over 
in town in the First National Bank. This is his vacation. 
Lord!” He slapped his knee again in the ecstasy of the 
joke. “Think of puttin’ in your vacation writin’! Name’s 
Field. . . . Warner Field.” 

The girl stared at him. “Warner Field?” she repeated it 
questioningly as though she had not heard right. There was 
surprise and incredulity in her tone, and something that 
might have been either interest or pleasure. But old Jud 
_ Moore was not subtle. He did not concern himself with the 


8 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


nuances of the human voice. And there were more impor- 
tant things to explain to the girl while she ate, the taxes for 
the new graveled road, the cow that had twin calves, the 
muskrat catch of the winter before with two minks thrown 
in for good measure. 

After the three had talked for a long time, Aunt Biny 
said happily that they must all go to bed, that there would 
be a lot of to-morrows in which to visit. The girl took a 
lamp from a high shelf in the kitchen, lighted its clean 
wick, gave each of the old folks an impetuous kiss and went 
up the narrow built-in stairway. Straight to the south bed- 
room she went, opened the door and stepped inside. The 
room was neat and clean. The single bed was made up with 
a white spread and a fat pillow standing upright in its 
starched case. On the high bureau were a gay scarf and 
many girlish trinkets. A small writing desk stood in the 
curve of the south windows. The chairs, the pictures, the 
cedar chest, were all in their old places. Through the open 
closet door she could see a few out-of-date dresses and a sun- 
hat hanging limply on their hooks. Everything was just as 
she had left it. Nothing of hers had been changed. With the 
lamp still in her hand she stood for some time just inside the 
doorway and took in the picture of the old-fashioned room. 
It was not true that environment made any difference with 
one’s personality but, if it were so, it would account for the 
feeling of tranquillity that possessed her, the witchery of the 
place that enveloped her. For a whimsical moment she had 
the sensation that the girl who climbed the stairs had been 
met at the door of the bedroom by another and, crossing the 
threshold, had become that one. 


God send us a little home 

To come back to when we roam. 
Red firelight and deep chairs 
And a small white bed upstairs. 


CHAPTER II 
WARNER FIELD 


J ee telling of a story is necessarily as flat as the paper 


on which it is penned. It has no third dimension. 

Like a picture on canvas there is no back side to it. 
And for that reason it will never show life in its complete- 
ness. For in reality while one thing is taking place a dozen 
small events are transpiring elsewhere to influence or change 
that particular act. If one could only walk around back of 
it and see these other incidents that are happening simul- 
taneously, the story would become more complete and real, 
would take upon itself depth as well as length and breadth. 

That one may know why Warner Field was spending a 
week in a cabin on old Jud Moore’s farm, it becomes neces- 
sary, then, to walk around behind the story to the Sunday 
noon before the girl’s arrival. 

On that second Sunday noon in September, Warner Field 
turned in at the old Baldwin house, once Maple City’s most 
select home, but now its most select boarding house. Warner 

Field was not quite thirty but he walked laggingly like a 
ynan from whom the energy of youth had fled. 
- Houses have personality. Have you never seen a digni- 
fied house looking disdainfully, critically down upon its 
frivolous bungalow neighbors? Or an old weather-beaten 
one trying to appear debonair in new shingles like a with- 
ered old woman in a wig? 

The old Baldwin house—nicknamed “The Bee-House” by 
the boarders—had personality. It stood on the corner of 

8 


10 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Main and Tenth Streets just far enough back in the maples 
and elms to give an impression of exclusiveness. It was 
large and solid, built of red brick and white sandstone, with 
a three-storied tower on one corner which, if detached from 
the rest of the house, would have made a substantial silo. 

A porch ran from the tower corner on the left around to 
the right side of the house where it ended rather foolishly 
in the windowless brick wall. There were double bay win- 
dows and gingerbread cornices, small glass panes in all the 
colors of the spectrum, and the word “Baldwin” picked out 
in pebbles on the top step. Old-fashioned it may have 
been but it was dignified. Fussy it may have looked but it 
had gentility. It said, “Of the modern young people who 
come in and out, I take no notice. Calm and reserved I sit 
here in the sun and the wind and the rain, like an old man, 
dreaming my dreams and counting my memories of the time 
when I was the show place of the town and all the country 
side came to look and exclaim.” 

There was a driveway which turned in from the Tenth 
Street side, ran under a porte-cochére (which no one in 
Maple City had ever had the temerity to pronounce) and 
ended in a barn built to match the house: red brick and sand- 
stone, dormer windows and gimcracks. At least a barn it 
had been in Judge Baldwin’s day, housing a pair of portly 
asthmatic horses, a surrey and a phaéton, to say nothing of 
a spotted pony and cart for the children. And now two of 
those little girls, who had driven around town years before, 
clean and stiff in their starched white dresses and broad 
brimmed hats tied under plump chins, were keeping boarders ~ 
in the aristocratic old house which sat dozing and dreaming 
behind the maples. And the barn was a garage in which 
two of the boarders ran their cars up to the mangers where 
the spirits of the fat old horses stood aa ghost hay 
all night long. 


WARNER FIELD il 


No one could remember who started calling it “The Bee- 
House” and neither was any one definitely sure whether “B” 
stood for “Baldwin” or “Boarding” or for that type of Apis 
insect which has gone down in history with a reputation for 
improving each shining hour. If the last, it was aptly 
named, for all the boarders belonged to the class of Amer- 
ican young people that earns its salt by the sweat of its 
brain. 

The two little girls who had grown up to keep boarders 
were now Miss Ann and Miss Rilla. Twins! While quite 
easily distinguishable they were very similar in appearance: 
heavy, erect, gray haired and pink cheeked. Rather child- 
ishly they still dressed alike. Round china-blue eyes gave 

_ them an added touch of similarity. But where Miss Rilla’s 
mouth turned up, Miss Ann’s turned down. This point was 
characteristic of their dispositions. Miss Rilla was emo- 
tional. Any passing remark which touched upon joy, sor- 
row or sympathy set her tear ducts to working. Miss Ann 
was cold-hearted. Any passing remark which touched upon 
joy, sorrow or sympathy left her impassive, callous, ques: 
tioning its motive. Miss Rilla was diplomatic. Miss Ann 
was blunt. “I’m fifty-four,” Miss Ann would say frankly, 
And as everybody knows that things which are equal to the 
same thing are equal to each other, it followed that poor 
Miss Rilla, who thought her age her own business, was also 
fifty-four. y 

If Miss Rilla was full of sentiment, Miss Ann was busi- 
nesslike. If Miss Rilla thought with her heart, Miss Ann ~ 
‘used her head. Indeed, each one’s attitude toward the 

boarders was typical of herself. To Miss Rilla the boarders 
were so many personalities. To Miss Ann the boarders 
were so many portions. 

Because of the stern masculine quality in Miss Ann’s 


_ make-up she naturally assumed the dictatorship and no 
f : 


, 


12 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Worthy Patron or Illustrious Potentate was more chary of 
the reputations of his lodge candidates than Miss Ann of the 
boarders. To all applicants she presented an imposing and 
impenetrable front if it happened that she knew little about 
them. “We are full to-day,” she would announce as firmly 
as though she possessed no more leaves for her table. “I'll 
let you know this evening.” 

Warner Field, however, had not found it difficult to gain 
admittance to the elect. When he arrived in Maple City to 
take a position in the First National Bank, O. J. Rineland, 
the president, had called up Miss Ann to engage a room for 
the newcomer. 

For eight months now he had been living at the “Bee- 
House.” Two-thirds of a year he had spent in Maple City 
and yet he felt no more an integral part of it than when he 
had first come. These months had been crowded with 
mental upheaval. Although he had given himself diligently 
to his new task, there had been neither buoyancy nor keen 
interest in it. In his unsettled condition he seemed to be two 
men; one who worked doggedly on, infinitely painstaking, 
habitually courteous; and one who was dissatisfied with his 
environment, critical of the community, deeply disgusted 
with himself. ) 

Just now he went up the walk where leaf shadows from 
the elms lay thick under the September sun, entered the © 
““Bee-House,” and hung his hat in the vestibule. There was 
no one in the reception hall with its inlaid floor and fire- 
place, no one at least but old Judge Baldwin, who seemed a — 
living personality looking pompously down upen the in- 
truder from his heavy gilt frame. ; 

Warner passed on to the dining room at the left. It was 
a long, narrow room, the result of the original dining room 
and old Mrs. Baldwin’s bedroom having been thrown to- 
gether after her death. A table with many people around it 


WARNER FIELD 13 


was in the long room with its curving archway. Miss Rilla 
sat at the north end and Miss Ann at the south end, which 
gave each half of the table the uncanny sensation of seeing 
its own reflection in a glass. Warner Field sat down at the 
left of Miss Rilla. He had been the last comer so that the 
table now carried its full quota of twelve. 

The nine other boarders were of the type to be found in a 
small town’s best boarding house. By reason of age, dig- 
nity and priority of residence, Major Slack, an old bachelor 
real estate agent, sat next to Miss Ann. One gathered from 
the florid, well-groomed, self-satisfied Major Slack that he 
had been responsible for the relatively quick decision of the 
Spanish-American War. Whatever he said carried weight. 
The merest statement, that salmon was better than trout, or 
that springtime in the mid-west was more delightful than 
fall, was weighted with a brick of finality so that when it 
fell into the conversation there was a dull thud intended to 
close the argument for all time. It was as though he chal- 
lenged one to say more. All well-known statements quite 
readily traceable to their origin, became the Major’s own 
as he uttered them. “Honesty is the best policy” and 
“Virtue is its own reward” were given with the stamp of 
authorship. 

At the Major’s right sat young Martin Spencer, a book- 
keeper in the First National Bank. Marty was the self- 
appointed table wit. He prepared a new story or two for 
each meal with the regularity with which he washed his 
hands for it. “Have you heard this one?” or “I read a good 
one to-day—” was his idea of enlightening dinner con- 
versation. 

Then came Miss Sarah Gunn, principal of the Whittier 
School. Miss Gunn was nothing if not sensible. A face- 
tious person would say she never went off half-cocked. Life 
to Miss Gunn’ was divided systematically. She weighed 


14 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


ee 


everything carefully: her speech, her actions, her food. 
She ate so-many proteids and so-many carbohydrates. She 
spent so-many hours in exercise and so-many in study. She 
believed that part of life was meant for work and part for 
fun, the only discrepancy in her philosophy being that she 
thought the first half was for the work and the last half for 
the fun. Poor lady . . . not to know that the two should be 
so intermingled that no one knows where the one leaves off 
and the other begins. 

Next to Miss Gunn sat Helen Blakely, whose life work was 
an attempt to teach high-school boys and girls to speak 
English instead of American. To this end she, herself, spoke 
with the same pure diction to be found in Blackstone’s 
Commentaries. She was a nice girl with a quite definite 
desire to seem still nicer in the eyes of Dr. Pearson, who sat 
across the table from her, and who, on occasion, thought 
no more of removing an appendix than his hat. 

George and Genevieve Kendall sat side by side, a living 
illustration that love dies early and easily. Seven years 


before, George Kendall had married Genevieve with high 


hopes and the nest-building instinct. For that period of 
time he had now to show: the same job with the same fur-* 
nace company, a childless wife with a recognized genius for 
bridge and mah jongg, and a second-floor back room at the 
““Bee-House.” As for Genevieve Kendall, her brain, so far as 
it functioned, told her that from what it had heard, it was a 
horrible experience to have a child, that boarding was easier 
than keeping house and that George might better be sure of 
that check every month than to risk starting out for himself 
with no telling what sort of luck. 

Next to the Kendalls was Mary Mae Gates, a Beat teacher 
who realized fully that she was made of finer, more artistic, 
less dusty dust, as it were, than other people. She was 
habitually tired, the inference being that her services in the 


WARNER FIELD 15 


musical world were so sought after that it kept her in a 
state of perpetual exhaustion. 

At Miss Rilla’s right sat Ambrose Jones, a clerk in a dry- 
goods store. He had a white-livered, parchmentlike look 
which came from long years of confinement. He said little 
but had a foolish way of darting his head here and there as 
though overly interested in everyone’s most trivial statement. 
In all he was as amusing as a bolt of toweling, as entertain- 
ing as a box of darning cotton. 

The girl who waited on the table answered to the name of 
Essie Carlson, a neat, washed-out nonentity with pale moist 
hair in a state of perpetual crimpiness. 

These were Warner Field’s associates of eight months but 

_ they seemed alien, people apart. He was out of tune with 
them, with Maple City, with life itself. But with a pleasant 
word of greeting from that outer man who bore himself 
creditably, he took his napkin and looked about the table 
as he silently appraised the diners. There they sat, eating, 
talking, bound up in their own small lives . . . little cars 
on narrow-gauge tracks, running around in circles, always 
ending at the place they started . . . themselves. He was 
half angry, wholly irritated with them and with himself that 

_he should feel this way toward them. They were getting 
on his nerves. Why was he here? Well, one had to be 
somewhere. _ 

As he sat at the table on this September Sunday it 

~ occurred to him that if he would pull away altogether, get 
out into the country away from this eternal irritation, per- 
haps he could accomplish something. It had been that way 
with him for months . . . a desire to get away from every- 
body and everything. He was restless . . . seeking .. . 
seeking . . . the thing he had lost. 

All through the dinner hour he held himself to his 

lie, courtesy and later even made himself stop for a 


16 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


few moments with the others in the big reception hall where 
the old Judge scowled down at the usurping tenants like 
some baron of feudal days. Then he slipped out to the 
garage and ran his roadster out. A dormant conscience 
roused to tap him on the shoulder and remind him that one | 
of the fellows like Marty Spencer who had no car, or that 
old bore, Ambrose Jones, would enjoy a country drive in 
the lazy September air, but he let that vague organ go on 
tapping unanswered, and pulled out by himself. 

He turned east on Main and headed for the country where 
he felt the open spaces might help to clarify his vision. 
_ And driving so, he came to the top of the hill where the 
Rineland home, the modern show place of the town, sat up 
on three terraces like a lady with her skirts pulled up from 
the commonness of Main Street. For a brief moment he 
was undecided, then suddenly swung up into the sloping 
asphalt drive. nd 

Yhe Rineland house had none of the gingerbread fnssi- 
ness, nor did it have any of the friendly look which the 
“Bee-House” held with its tree-filled yard and its ample 
porches. It was plain, chaste, and porchless, save for the 
small formal entrance. In its discreet, retiring way it said: 
“We do not flaunt our family life on a veranda where all 
may see. We carry it on behind rose draperies.” During 
its construction, its Italian Renaissance architecture had not 
met with approval in the community. Old Jud Moore, 
bringing a load of wood to town, had spat over the wheel | 
as he rendered his verdict: “Eyetalian? Gosh A’mighty. 
. . . Eyetalian things don’t belong on the prairie. They 
belong where the Dagos live,” a weighty remark that had 
made the younger Walt Thomas riding with him rock with 
lee. | 
When Warner Field touched the gondola-shaped knocker, 
Alice Rineland came to the door. At the sight of Warner, — 


she flushed a little and a warm flood of pleasure swept her 
gray-blue eyes. With a friendly if detached greeting to the 
girl, Warner said: “I wonder if I could see your father for 


WARNER FIELD 17 


a few minutes.” 


She took Warner into a long living room, a little over- 
furnished and overstuffed in mulberry and taupe. “I'll call 
Papa,” she said in a soft, clinging voice. She went into 
another room but she did not call him. When she came 
back she sat down in a corner of the big mulberry daven- 
port. She looked womanly, soft and gentle, quite lovely in 
rather a pale way. Against the mulberry of the background 
her face stood out like a purely cut cameo. 

Her eyes, that had changed from cold gray to warm blue 


~when Warner entered, swept him now with an enfolding 


look. “What have you been. doing all week?” she asked. 
In the question there might have been the faint deft touch 
of reproof. 

They spoke of local subjects for a time until Alice, sens- 
ing that Warner’s attention was slipping, went after her 
father. He came in almost immediately, a small, dapper 


man, gray haired, efficient-looking, cordial. 


_ The call was not long. After the short interview with 


_ Mr. Rineland, Warner rose to go. As he was leaving, it 


occurred to him that he ought to ask Alice to drive with 
him. Vaguely he sensed that it was what she was wanting. 


‘But he did not ask her. He felt like being alone. He 


wanted to go over the ground again and think the thing 


out. 


So he drove alone through the Sunday afternoon quiet 


of the country. The interview had turned out just as he 


had expected. Mr. Rineland had told him to go ahead and 
take his week’s vacation. He had said that he did not really 
deserve one, having been there less than a year, but Mr. 


: Rineland had waved that aside. From the decision of taking 


18 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


the coming week off from his bank work, Warner’s mind 
went once more to the same old worry. The Debt! That 
debt was like the terrible old man of the sea which Sindbad 
had encountered on one of his journeys. Would he ever be 
able to shake him off? | 

There was a slight breeze springing up now so that the 
leaves on the Lombardy poplars and cottonwoods which 
lined many of the farmyards were twinkling, little Pierrots, 
dancing in the sunshine. Coming out of that black mental 
swamp into which he was so constantly plunging, Warner 
gave a few moments’ thought to the beauty of the panorama 
before him. He had that same feeling he had experienced 
on other occasions . . . that the whole countryside was a 
huge chessboard with many-colored squares. There were 
the dark green squares of alfalfa ready for the third cutting, 
pale yellow squares of wheat stubble, light tan squares cf 
maturing corn fields, black squares where the fall plowing. 
had been done and a half dozen shades in the pastures. 
Between masses of the squares wound brown ribbon roads, 
symmetrically dividing the country into blocks of six hun- 
dred and forty acres. Yes, it was a chessboard and the 
people were pawns being moved from square to square. 
He, himself, was a pawn, to be swept, when the game was 
over and the chessboard closed, into the box of oblivion. 
Warner Field’s stock in himself that summer was quite be- 
low par. 

At the two-mile corner he came to the bridge across 
Tinkling Creek. In a hastily formed desire to plunge into 
ihe tangled thicket that followed the little stream, he left 
the car under the cottonwoods at the side of the road and 
walked down to the creek bed. The sumac was beginning 
to show a faint touch of pink on the tips of the leaves, pre- 
paratory to kindling the fires of October. There was goiden- 
rod everywhere, as though many knights in driving by had 

; | 


WARNER FIELD 19 


dropped their plumes. In the thicket of wild plums a 
catbird sang like a mocking bird and then, grotesquely, in 
a very parody of its other song, gave out its raucous clown 
call. Elderberries spilled the last of their great flat trays 
of seedy food. 

Simultaneously with Warner’s arrival an old man with 
a fishpole in his hand broke through the bushes and came 
down to the edge of the creek. Warner recognized him as 
one of the bank’s customers. It had been hard for him to 
get acquainted with the farmers. Their overalls and un- 
shaven faces gave them a sort of made-in-a-mold look like 
the muddy little cars in which the majority of them came to 
town. The man was Jud Moore, a big-boned creature, gray, 
weather-beaten, one of the old settlers. His skin lay in loose 
wrinkles above his whitening beard, as though a size too 
large for the flesh. | 
| ee spoke to him. Jud Moore’s salutation was olppe 

“’Do, sir.” 

= ishing?” Warner had that exterior interest in people 
which he had trained himself to feel. 

“No, sir. ’N I ain’t goin’ to. Sundays I come down here 
’n take my pole out that hollow tree. Start to throw in the 
line. Somethin’ keeps me from it. It’s Ma. Thinks it’s 
wicked. Hurts her feelin’s if I fish on Sunday. Women’s 
funny, ain’t they? Can do most any darn fool thing but 
hurt Ma.” ys . 

It amused Warner. His interest was not so forced. The 
two men sat down under the cottonwoods. That mellowness 
of the day soothed Warner a little. The lush warmth, the 
suggestion of fall in the presence of the goldenrod and 
gentians, the call of wild free things all leagued together 
to entice him. 

“Rather nice here,” was his friendly comment. 
| “Lord, yes. Best place on earth. Know every hump in 


9 


*% 


20 : THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


the ground ’n every bush. Never could see how any one 
could work indoors. Wouldn’t be no bankers or merchants 
in the world if they was all like me.” He talked in crisp 
blunt sentences. There was something expressive about the 
way he clipped them out. 

For some time the two sat, commenting on various agri- 
cultural subjects. If he was going to stay in a country 
bank forever, make it his life work, Warner thought, he 
might as well knuckle down to get the farmers’ viewpoint 
of life. When at last he rose, the sun’s rays were sloping 
through the clump of wild plums. The old man rose, too, 
unfolding his gaunt form like a camel. “Come on up to 
the house. Meet Ma,” he invited. 

Warner was just on the verge of thanking him and refus- 
ing when that slight interest which the old man had kindled 
in an uninteresting time turned the answer. The house was 
visible through the trees, a plain boxlike structure with a 
straight porch across the front and a queer bay window 
above it. 

The man’s wife was lame. She was tall and stooped, her 
crutch apparently a little too short for her. Her hair was 
snow white and neatly parted. 

“Ma, . . . Mr. Field. One I told you was workin’ in 
the old First National. Used to live in Omaha. Been back 
East the last few years afore he come here.” 

The woman took Warner’s hand and said gently: “I 
know about you. You were very sick just before you came. 
Rilla Baldwin told me.” | 

For the first time since coming to Maple City Warner had 
a boyish warmth of feeling toward a human, the peculiar 
sensation that here was the first person in the community 
to whom he would like to tell all the trouble of the past 
year. To his surprise she was asking him to stay to supper. 


He thanked her and saié he thought he had better get back 


WARNER FIELD 21 


to the “Bee-House.” But when he sensed that she was 
feeling he did not think the meal worth staying to, he stayed. 

As soon as “Ma” had gone to start the supper the old man 
slapped his knee in silent mirth: “Glad you’re stayin’. Every 
Sunday night Ma has cornmeal mush ’n milk. Don’t like 
the darn stuff but Ma does. Won’t tell her so. Wouldn’t 
cook it if she knew what a hard time I have gettin’ it down. | 
When anybody else is here she gets somethin’ else. Glad 
you're stayin’.” 

During the simple meal, served in the dining-room end of 
the kitchen, Jud Moore expressed himself in that blunt fash- 
ion on many subjects. But under all the rough exterior 
Warner could see the devotion he gave to the gentle lame 


woman. “Pa! Pa!” she would admonish him soothingl 
Sly 


when he became too vehement. 

It was when she was clearing away the plain heavy 
dishes, that she suddenly called “Pa!” from the doorway. 
She was colorless and her hand was at her heart. “Call 
Doc Minnish,” the old man ordered Warner sharply, fear 
in his voice. He hurried to his wife and assisted her to a 
big chintz-covered chair near the bay window. In a moment 
he was dropping out medicine for her with huge shaking 
hands. 

Warner rang for the old doctor, hearing, as he waited, the 
click, click of the receivers on the party line being removed 


from their hooks. The telephone is the daily newspaper in 


many a country home. Dr. Minnish was not in, so Warner 
took things in his own hands and called young Dr. Pearson 
from the “Bee-House,” who arrived in an amazingly short 
space of time. Helen Blakely, the high-school English 
teacher, was with him, trying not to look important. Almost 
simultaneously a middle-aged woman and a young man 
arrived in the yard in a little rattling car to see what was 


the matter and to proffer their aid. Warner had his first 


~~ 


22 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


glimpse of the way a country community looks out for its 
own. This is called neighborliness or curiosity, ic ape” 
entirely on the viewpoint of the observer. 

The woman was a mound of quivering fat that seemed to 
have been slipped out of some human-shaped gelatine 
mold. But she climbed spryly out of the car and walked 
up to the porch as lightly as an inflated balloon. Warner 
had never seen a fat woman walk so springily. “Aunt Biny 
got a spell?” she asked. 

Old Jud Moore addressed the big woman as “Mattie” and 
presented her as “Mis’ Thomas” to Warner, the inference 
being that Warner was the more important of the two. The 
young man in his early twenties was her son Walt. 

While the others were attending to Aunt Biny, Warner and 
Helen Blakely walked around the picketed yard. On the 
north there was a windbreak of huge maple trees. A row 
of cottonwoods followed a lane south to meet the cotton- 
woods that lined the main highway. In the yard there were 
several outbuildings. One- of these little structures, a two. 
roomed dwelling, was located near the orchard on a rise of 
land behind which flowed Tinkling Creek. “The old folks’ 
first house,” Warner guessed. It had been painted white 
but the various coats had peeled off and hung in gray dingy 
blisters. Both the front and back doors were closed, but 
womanlike, Helen Blakely looked in at the window. “See 
how cozy it is inside,” she called to Warner, “and as clean 
as can be.” 

“Ready for hired help, I expect,” Warner told her. 

When Aunt Biny was easy again and Dr. Pearson and 
Helen Blakely had left, old Doc Minnish, whose call had not 
been canceled, arrived. He was an old man, grizzled and 
slouchy. His shoes were mud-caked. His hands had axle- | 
grease on them. He had been known to carry tablets loose — 
in his coat pocket and to turn them out on the table along — 


™ 


WARNER FIELD 23 


with a collection of oats and buttons. But he fought Death 
like Achilles fought Hector and only occasionally was he 
worsted. 

“Took Ma over,” Jud Moore told him. “Don’t have much > 
faith in these spick and span young fries.” With the return 
of color to his wife’s face, Jud Moore’s bluntness and bluff- 
ness had returned. It was as though he slipped a garment 
over his emotion. 

After Doc Minnish had gone and Aunt Biny, with pillows 
at her back, was talking comfortably from the big chair, 
Warner put the question for whose answer he had waited: 
“You folks wouldn’t want to rent me that little house out 
there for a week, would you? I’m to have a few days’ 
_ vacation and I’ve taken a notion that maybe it would be just 
the place for what I want to do.” 

The old man’s astonishment was genuine. “What im 

tunkit would you do there?” 

“TI used to...” Warner found himself hesitating to 
explain to the blunt old farmer, “do some writing. I’ve 
rather fallen out of the way of it in the last year. I thought 
perhaps if I could get completely away from people I might 
try my hand at it again.” 

“Do it for a livin’?” 

Warner had to smile. “Yes. Pushing an adding machine 
hasn’t exactly: been my line. But . .. some things hap- 
pened so that I’ve not bee writing.” 

Aunt Biny said weakly from her chair, “I always wished 
I could write. I have, too . . . lots of things. But they’re 
not like I want them. I feel them all in my heart... 
beautiful things that sing. But when I want to put them 
_ down on paper, it seems they’re like little wild things .. . 
they’re gone.” 

- “T don’t see any argyment agin’ this here new tenant, do 
You, Ma?” Ma saw none either. 
he 


24 ‘HE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“You’re scarcely well enough for me to take my meals 
with you?” Warner asked. 

Aunt Biny thought not, but she called Mattie Thomas in 
from the kitchen with “Mattie, could you feed Mr. Field 
over at your place for a week?” 

Mattie came bouncing in with that astonishing rubber-ball 
movement. Her small eyes above the inflated cheeks shone 
at the prospect. She was like a race horse awaiting the 
signal. “If he thinks he can put up with my plain kind 
_ of cookin’.” 

She was one of the best cooks in the community and no 
one knew it better than she, but she liked to pose as a 
servant unworthy of his hire. 

So Warner left with “Then J’Il see you people again to- 
morrow. 

On his way into town as he passed the Rineland home 
sitting upon three terraces he could hear the lovely strains 
of Wagner’s “Evening Star” from Alice’s piano. No one in 
Maple City could play like Alice Rineland. 

At the “Bee-House” supper was over. The boarders were 
out on the wide porch when Warner put up his car. He 
joined them, not from any special desire, but because he did 
not want to seem too stand-offish. ; 

There was the customary varying and unrelated conversa- — 
tion. Miss Gunn had been improving her mind with a little 
light review of feudalism from the time of the Carlovingians 
up to the Crusades. Marty Spencer’s heaviest literary re- 
search of the afternoon had concerned itself with one Andy 
Gump. 

“Hasn’t the day been lovely?” Miss Rilla, with moist 
eyes, asked the others. 

“Anybody but a witless person ought to know it's been 
too hot,” Miss Ann gave forth sourly. | 

“September is inferior to October,’ Major Slack laid it 


WARNER FIELD 25 


down definitely. It was as though he had made the months 
and knew whereof he spoke. 

Mary Mae Gates was languid as one who has almost sung 
away her life. “It seems impossible for a Maple City 
church service to take place without some solo work from 
me. I guess if I should go to Omaha they would have to 

get along without me.” 
Ambrose Jones, the bore, darted his head foolishly here 
and there as though afraid he might miss something. Only 
the two Kendalls were not talking. George did not know 
just why Genevieve was in one of her frigid moods but, if 
she chose to be so, he guessed he could manufacture some 
chemical ice himself. 

Warner Field looked on at the little people playing their 
little parts in the little town and felt critical, aloof, exiled. 


CHAPTER Il 
THE DIARIES 


HEN morning came the renting of the old house 

\) \) seemed foolish to Warner Field. His own room 

on the second floor of the “Bee-House” was quiet 
enough for that matter. There was nothing wrong with the 
place. It was all with him. One could write anywhere if” 
one had anything to say. He himself had written in busy 
offices and on an ocean liner. Some of his best work had 
been scribbled on the elevated. If only he applied himself, 
he could get down to business. 

Mechanically he went about his packing. He threw some 
things into a bag and sat down to clean the typewriter. It 
was like an old friend with an alien, unfriendly look on its 
face. For the first time since his arrival he noticed that 
things in his room were dusty. Mrs. Carlson, the mother of 
Essie, the waitress, usually came in to clean for Miss Ann, 
but she couldn’t come any more for a while. One would 
think that a man like Gus Carlson could support his family 
without letting his wife go out to work at such a time. 

When he had finished cleaning the machine, he packed 
it into the car with a few clothes, some toilet articles, a book 
or two and a box of paper. The whole thing had flattened 
out a little since his first impulse. 

‘Out at the farm he ran his car under an old shed. When 
he came out Jud Moore in work clothes had come into the 
yard with Aunt Biny on her crutch not far behind. “Mattie’s 

26 


THE DIARIES 27 


_ waitin’ for you,” was the old man’s terse greeting. “She’s 


all ready to set up.” 

Warner looked at his watch. “Lunch so soon? I wonder, 
then, when she has dinner.” 

“Just right plum on the tick o’ the clock at noon,” Jud 
Moore said crossly. “There ain’t no such thing as dinner at 
night. I bet I could find them very words in the Bible if 
I set out to hunt: ‘Breakfast, dinner and supper created He 
them.’ ” 

“Pa! Pa!” Aunt Biny remonstrated. It did not bother 
her in the least excepting as she feared its misinterpretation 
by a stranger. For a half century that rough fretting and 
fuming and roaring laughter had been as the wind in the 
‘maples to her. 

Warner ran his car out again and went immediately to the 
Thomas farm, which was west of the Moores’ but on the 
opposite side of the road. The three sat down together, 
Mattie and her son Walt and Warner. Walt seemed about 
twenty-two or three, a big awkward fellow with a good face. 
Warner liked him at once, even though there was something 

_ distant about his quietness. It was not sullenness, certainly 
not sulkiness. Warner could not know that it was a touch 
of envy, that the young man was resenting the cut of the 
boarder’s summer flannels and the ease with which he did 
things. <i ; 

To Mattie Thomas earth held no sorrow that food could 
not heal. In consequence the meal was a gourmand’s meal: 
chicken, dumplings, a half dozen vegetables, a salad, two 
kinds of pie. Warner ate more‘heartily than he had done 
for months. There was a flavor about everything that not 
even so good a place as the “Bee-House”’ gave. 

“Please don’t cook so much again,” he said with his slow 
ingratiating smile. So seldom did he smile these days. 
Mattie was swollen with pride. It was all she needed to 


28 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


urge her on to greater effort. Already she was planning a 
supper of soda biscuits, creamed chicken, cabbage slaw, 
angel food cake and maple ice cream. 

Warner was as torpid as an alligator when he went back 
to the little house. The two rooms had evidently been 
rescrubbed for they still bore a clean moist smell. The bed 
was made up with a quilt of green stars on a pink calico 
background. There were two chairs, a table and a clean rag 
rug on the floor. At one end of the room a cupboard was 
built in the wall. Warner put his typewriter on the stand, 
unpacked the things in his bag and walked over to put them 
in the built-in drawer under the cupboard. But the drawer 
was locked. He turned the wooden button of «he cupboard 
and by means of the spool which served as a knob opened 
the pine doors. To his surprise the cupboard was not 
empty. The three shelves were well filled. An old-fashioned - 
stiff-looking china dolk stared at him with painted eyes. 
There were pine cones, some miniature dishes, a box of 
shells and many books. Evidently they were the treasures of 
a little girl. That she had lived many years before was 
apparent, for the doll, the dishes, the books, everything 
seemed to look ancient. 

He reached to the second shelf for one of the books. On 
a flyleaf in tipsy, heavily-pressed print it said “Nancy 
Moore, aged six.” There were other books: Lady of the 
Lake, Rollo in Switzerland, Elsie Dinsmore, a_ tiny 
Bible . . . old things with their ownership established on 
each flyleaf as Nancy Moore’s, aged twelve or seven or 
fourteen. The little girl of Old Jud Moore, Warner thought. 
Dead, he imagined, or if living, at least middle-aged. A 
grandmother, now, no doubt. These country girls married 
young. The old folks evidently,nad kept the keepsakes in 
the first house for reasons of sentiment. Tragedy and pathos 
were in the little things even though the girl did not die. 


THE DIARIES 29 


Change! Change was the most heartbreaking thing in the 
world. In front of the cupboard with its hoard of ancient 
treasures he dropped into one of those moods of deep de- 
pression which met him so frequently. Change! That was 
why he was here. Change! That was why his father had 
done what he did. Change! Warner shuddered. It was the 
most terrifying word in the language. 

On the lowest shelf was an old photograph of a young ° 
slip of a girl with a sweet, if scared, expression. Her hands 
were crossed demurely in her lap and there was a wreath of 
flowers in her hair. On the back was written, “(Nancy Moore 
on her 15th birthday.” 

Warner put the picture carefully back, closed the door 
and threw his own articles back into the bag. 

He pulled the typewriter a 1ittle closer to the open window 
and sat down. Through the window he could see the bank 
of Tinkling Creek with its fringe of wild plum and elder- 
berry, cottonwood and sumac. To the north the old apple 
orchard stood, heavy boughed, with its offerings of Ben 
Davis and Golden Glow, Jonathans and Winesaps. Warner 
was almost trembling as he ran the paper in the machine. 
So much hung on the moment. | 

For an hour or two he wrote haltingly, in an agony of 
effort. At the end of that time he read it all over carefully. 
A great depression seized him. He had been a fool to think 
the setting of the peaceful farming country could make any 
difference. It would not come. The whole thing lacked 
something. To his critical mind it sounded amateurish, 
insipid. He told himself a callow freshman might have used 
it in his theme class. He had lost it . . . the knack. For 
a long time he sat slumped down in his chair. Old Jud 
Moore brought the cows up through the lane, their great 
bags bulging. Aunt Biny Moore limped from chicken house 
to straw stack gathering the eggs. The sun slipped toward | 


30 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


the rim of the prairie. The waters of Tinkling Creek ran 
on under the road bridge. Empty birds’ nests swung in the 
huge maples. Over in the cupboard was Nancy Moore in 
the gay toggery of her birthday apparel, fresh flowers in her 
hair, the glow of youth in her face. Change! 

He sat crumpled down before his typewriter until Jud 
Moore came to the door. “Hey ... you Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne Longfeller, Mattie’s called up ‘to see if her cookin’ 
clean killed you off.” 

Warner jumped up with an embarrassed laugh. “Tell 
her [1 be right over.” 

After the evening meal he went back to the Moore place 
but he did not go to the cabin. He sat down on a grassy 
hillock at the edge of the orchard. He heard the evening 
train whistle in, saw it crawling, toylike, across the prairie, 
a light in each miniature window. A star shot across the 
night. Where did it go? And why? The great eternal 
questions. He seemed so small in the gigantic scheme of 
things . . . so insignificant . . . his life so unnecessary. 
Back to his troubles he went like a dog worrying a rat. Not 
by anything in his education, his sophistication or his phi- 
losophy ‘could he shake off those great black engulfing — 
clouds. Around in circles went his thoughts, always back to 
the Debt . . . that clinging, slimy octopus. Was he to live 
out his life here among these circumscribed, provincial peo- 
_ple? There was no one toward whom he felt any special 
warmth of friendship but the Rinelands whom he had known 
when he was a small boy and they had visited his father’s 
home in Omaha. Alice... ! He wondered vaguely 
whether he ought to drop in there so much. The thing was 
getting a little obvious, wasn’t it? Or was she merely kind 
because she sensed his loneliness? He put the question 
aside in favor of the latter decision. At least with his other 
faults, he was not weighted with ego. 


THE DIARIES SL 


The mood stayed with him for hours. He was not in deep 
anguish. Rather was he in a state of lethargy. There is an 
element of activity in deep groveling anguish. But this 
worry was old ...and his mental processes seemed 
dulled. 

He pulled himself up and went into the little house where 
he lighted an evil-smelling kerosene lamp with a red 
flannel in the oil. Vaguely he wondered why the red flannel ? 
He opened the door of the little cupboard and, ashamed at 
what he took to be the weakness of his groping, picked up 
the little leather Bible and opened it. It opened to the book 
of Job. He grinned sardonically. Job! Pretty good that 
was! Job was the duffer with the thousand miseries. His 
grim humor, that was not humor at all, faded. He looked 
down at the fine print of the tissuelike page. As though it 
were a personal message an underlined passage stared back 
at him: 


That which | see not, teach Thou me. 


For some time he stood at the cupboard before the keep- 
sakes of the ancient little girl. Then he put the book back 
_and turned the wooden button. 

On Tuesday he tried writing again with that same dis- 
heartening success. In the afternoon he tramped through 
the fields and along Tinkling Creek where the dragonflies 
darted up from the half-dried bed. Always he seemed 
searching for something lost. Once life had been good and 
now it was stale. Once he was young but now he felt old. 

The little cupboard with its musty odor fascinated him. 
He let it play on his emotions, the aliveness of the little girl 
who was dead to youth if not in reality. When he returned 
from his tramp he opened the pine doors again. The top 
shelf was packed with cheap little note books. Thinking 
they were her school work, half curiously he reached up for 


32 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


one. They had been old account books, evidently, for across 
the top of the first page in a masculine hand was written: 
~.“In account with Jonathan Fair ...1 keg nails.” This 
had been crossed out and underneath in the little girl’s 
handwriting it said: “The apple blossoms are all out to-day. 
The orchard looks as though the clouds had fallen and 
spattered over the trees and fences. When you're walking 
down the rows under the boughs it seems as though you are 
walking in an enchanted land where everything is pink and 
white. When you shut your eyes youre drowning in per- 
fume and when you open them you’re drowning in color.” 

Warner smiled involuntarily. The little girl had the soul 
of a poet. The late afternoon sun penetrated the open door 
and window and made odd-shaped flickering shadows over 
the book. He turned the page. It said: “In account with 
Jonathan Fair . ..10 Ibs. sugar. I have tried to decide 
which I like best, yellow dandelions, white daisies or laven- 
der crocuses. The yellow dandelions are gay cheerful 
people who are full of jokes. The daisies are girls in» 
white hats standing by the roadside to see the parade go by. 
The lavender crocuses are vain satiny old women who like 
to dress up just as much as they did when they were girls.” 

Warner smiled again at the whimsical. thought of the 
ancient little girl and placed the cheap gray account book 
upon its shelf. 

On Wednesday he worked at his writing, painfully, labo- 
riously. He tried different types of work. Nothing satisfied 
him. At the close of the afternoon when he had finished 
the labored task he came back to the cupboard and took 
down one of the diaries. No events seemed chronicled. 
They were merely fanciful imaginings . . . the child’s in- 
nermost thoughts. He told himself if there had been per- 
sonalities, any story of human contact, he would not have 
read them. But they were so impersonal ... and so 


THE DIARIES 33 


ancient. It was as though he reached up and took down 
from the shelf the memoirs of Napoleon’s Josephine or 
Mary Queen of Scots. And they seemed to bring near to 
him, in their freshness, the little prairie girl of long ago, to 
recreate the vision of her, old-fashioned, dainty, elusive. 

On Thursday his interest had not waned and he closed 
the day with the reading of a whole volume of her childish 
sentiments. 

Friday was cloudy and cool with a promise of autumn in 
the air. All afternoon he kept at his self-appointed task 
with no return of his old-time enthusiasm. Doggedly he 
stayed by it with the hope that by such persistent labor he 
could feel the old zest for it. As he had done on the other 
days when he stopped working, he took down one of the 
diaries and ran through the pages with their girlish fresh- 
ness of vision. In this volume the handwriting was firmer, 
more mature. He turned back to the first page. It said, 
“Nancy Moore, aged seventeen.” Instinct and training told 
him that to read the childish thoughts of a little girl was 
one thing . . . to walk deliberately uninvited into the mind 
of a young woman of that age was another. 

Almost before he was aware, he read: “Love comes into 
my thoughts now when the leaves dance on the cottonwoods 
and when the moon shines down through the maples and 
_when the robins sing after the rain. Lately I know what the 
man I shall love is going to look like. I mean I almost do 
but not quite. I can see his shoulders and the back of his 
head and how tall he is, but, try as hard as I can to see it, 
his face stays dim and blurred. But of one thing I am sure 
. . . he is somewhere and when I see him ! shall know 
him.” 

Warner Field laughed. “Dear little unsophisticated 
Nancy Moore,” he said to himself. “I hope that long ago 
you knew him when you saw him.” 


34 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Still smiling, he turned the page. It looked broken, 
blurred, erased, in sharp contrast to the neatness of the 
other pages. “In account with Jonathan Fair . . . 10 lbs. 
codfish. I am eighteen to-day. Something has happened 

. something terrible. My mind is crowded with a thou- 
sand things to write. But I shall never write in you again. 
Good-by, little diaries. Good-by, thrushes and lilacs and 
orchard and Tinkling Creek. Good-by, my prairie. And 
most of all, good-by, Nancy Moore. Oh, Nancy Moore, I 
loved you. Good-by.” 

Warner hastily turned the page. But only the account of 
Jonathan Fair in regard to six yards of calico met him. For . 
the rest of the pages the blankness of gray-white paper 
stared back at him. For the rest of the merry-hearted little 
Nancy Moore’s life . . . nothing. She had gone. 

He went back and read over the closing pages. What was - 
it? Had they sent her away? Had she died? Had she 
been married to some one against her will? What had hap- 
pened to her? For heaven’s sake, what ever became of her? 
One thing was certain; up to the day of her last writing, 
when some crashing thing had happened, she had been sweet 
and lovely:and happy. 

All the rest of the day the thing hung over him. It 
obsessed him. It was like the bad ending of a play, the 
distressing finish of a book. But it was more than those. 
He could have thrown those off but this held him. With 
mind occupied with the tragedy ... if tragedy it really 
was ... he walked out through the orchard . . . Nancy 
Moore’s orchard, long grown hoary with many years of 
blossoming and bearing, and down by Tinkling Creek . . . 
Nancy Moore’s creek in which the water was still running on 
to the sea. : 

At the supper table he put it half haltingly to Walt and 
Mattie. “Did the old folks ... the Moores ... ever 


THE DIARIES 35 


have any children?” It was as though he did not want to 
hear. 

“One girl,” Mattie, who was usually so voluble, said 

tersely. “She died when she was two. They raised their 
niece. Won't you have some more potatoes, Mr. Field?” 
~ Walt reddened to the ears, a dull brick color. 
_ Their attitude intrigued his interest the more. What mys- 
tery was this? Had some dramatic thing happened on the 
edge of this prosaic mid-west town? Did some tragedy lie 
buried among the cornfields and apple trees? He would 
ask Miss Rilla Baldwin when he went back to town, or Mr. 
Rineland. 

After supper, drawn back to it like a needle to a magnet, 
he got out that last diary and read it again. She was acting, 
pretending something that was not so. No, that broken, 
blurred page was life itself, not imagery. Well, it was all 
ages ago, years before he was born. But the thing haunted 
him, the personality of the little girl who had been happy 
and was happy no more. He experienced the sense of a 
personal loss. He felt deprived of another thing, disap- 
pointed again. He read over what he had written that day, 
When he had finished he tore it up. It was rottenly con. 
structed and it was not true. 

He sat out on the knoll near the orchard again and 
watched the evening train creep across the prairie. How 
people rushed futilely about like ants with their tiny crumbs! 
There were people on that train whose entire lives were to 
be changed by journeying on the little crawling lighted toy. 
And Warner Field’s life was to be changed by the little 
crawling toy. For the train crossing the prairie in the early 
dusk was the one which brought the girl home to the 
square farmhouse behind the cottonwoods. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE LOCKED DRAWER 


the old farmhouse woke with a start, not knowing 
for a moment where she was. Then she remembered. 
She was at home again. Any place where childhood has 
been spent is home. Almost immediately she heard the 
thump, thump of Aunt Biny’s crutch on the bare kitchen 
floor. It had been the first sound to greet her every morn- 
ing when she was a little girl. Lying there in her bed she | 
lived over her home-coming and the joy that the old people 
had shown. And to think that she had questioned their 
attitude! She was glad she had come back. For two months 
she would do all she could for their happiness, all she could 
to make amends. For two months she would slip back into 
her old ervironment and indulge in the half-lark of being 
her old self. | 
She rose and went to the odd-shaped window in the south 
end of her bedroom. Once in a wild burst of interest in 
the interior of the house Uncle Jud had built on an addition 
to the room which jutted out over the lower porch roof. 
It was too small for a sun room and too large for a bay 
window, but a queer arrangement of three large windows, 
one of which looked to the east, one to the south and the 
other to the west. 3 
The girl looked out of it now to catch her first glimpse 
of the old place by daylight. To the west was the long row 
of cottonwoods that followed the lane to the main road. 
36 


QO: Saturday morning the girl in the south bedroom of 


THE LOCKED DRAWER 37 


To the south the grassy path led down to the gate with stiff 
cottonwoods standing like trained butlers on either side and 
the dusty road beyond. To the east lay the open country and 
the long low rolling hills, dotted now with pink pools of 
light from the first rays of the sun. In the northwest part 
of the yard were the outbuildings and a straw stack, with 
the orchard farther on and Tinkling Creek beyond. On the 
other side of the straw stack was the old cabin with its 
blistered paint. And Warner Field had been living out 
there for a week. It seemed incredible! She had known he 
was in Nebraska, but supposed it was Omaha. She won- 
dered if he remembered seeing her. Most probably he did 
not. She would not enlighten him, of that she was sure. 
She jumped up and began dressing. Suddenly she threw 
back her head and laughed .. . high bubbling laughter. 
She went to the closet and got out an old blue calico dress 
and sun hat and put them on. She looked in the glass, 
tilting it up so that she could get the full length view of 
herself. Satisfied with her appearance, she slipped down- 
stairs and went quietly out of the front door, crossing the 
lane road to the straw stack. Digging her bare feet into the 
sloping side of the stack she climbed to the top where she 
settled herself and peered down the steeper side. Torn 
between her desire to try the long descent and a cautious 
fear of the consequences, she hesitated for a moment. Then 
her love of excitement winning over any wariness she may 
have felt, she threw out both arms, stiffened herself and 
moved downward. According to laws immutable, the tend- 
ency of all falling bodies is to accelerate in speed. That 
nature plays no favorites was apparent to the girl as she 
shot down. 

And so it happened that Warner Field, leaving the cabin 
at his usual time to go to Mattie’s for breakfast, rounded the 
straw stack at the side of the lane road in time to see a young 


38 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


girl in a great whirlwind of swirling straw, calico dress, 
dust, bare legs and sun hat, roll down the stack almost to 
his feet. 

He was so Deeniehea that he only stood still and stared 
until the dust from the mélée had died away. The girl’s 
sun hat had fallen back and a shock of warm brown hair 
hung over her eyes. She sat up with a mischievous, breath- 
less chuckle, tossed her hair out of her eyes and saw Warner. 
Apparently she felt a pain in her foot, for with a quick 
movement she pulled the hat over her face and, hand on her 
ankle, dropped back in a little huddled heap. 

Warner stirred himself, stepped over to her, and slipping 
his arms around her, raised her up. 

“Are you hurt?” If his ocarenae was inane it was anx- 
ious. 

She opened her eyes at that and looked up at him. They - 
were lovely eyes, big and brown and appealing. 

“No, sir. I warn’t hurt none.” She spoke nasally. 

It made him wince. She was so lovely that the miserable 
jargon she used seemed like the storybook toads from her 
mouth. In his arms she seemed dainty, too, in spite of the 
atrocious ill-shaped dress. 

“Let me take you in to Mrs. Moore.” 

But the girl seemed alarmed at that. “Oh, no sir,” she 
begged him, almost piteously he thought. “I was just 
playin’ in here for a while. I never git no time to play 
and I snuck away for a bit. I’m all right now.” She stood 
up, dropping her eyes and pulling the short calico skirt 
over her knees. Now that she was standing, he saw how 
slight she was. There was something boyish about the 
slim straight figure. A quick regret at her lack of educa- 
tion went through him. However did it happen? Girls as 
old as she . . . she must have been sixteen . . . didn’t talk 
that way here in the mid-west. There were places where 


THE LOCKED DRAWER 39 


they did, mining communities, or out-of-the-way mountain 
towns, but here in this rich farming state everybody went 
to school. 

“Do you live around here?” 

“Down yander,” she pointed vaguely across Tinkling 
Creek. “Well, I gotta be a-goin’. My ankle’s all right. 
Thanky, mister.” She shot him a glance from her brown 
eyes, turned and went humming along through the orchard 
and down toward the creek bed. As she passed from his 
sight over the high bank of the stream she threw back her 
head and laughed ... that gay bubbling laughter. ‘“@ 
guess you don’t remember me, Mr. Field.” 

Warner thought of her all the way over to Maitie’s. She 
looked so attractive that the terrible crudeness of her back- 
woodsy condition stood out in even greater prominence 
than if she had been physically different. He found him- 
. self wondering if he couldn’t do something about instruct- 
ing her. | 

At dinner he asked casually: “Who is a girl, sixteen 
perhaps, even seventeen, it was hard to tell, who lives down 
past Moore’s on the other side of Tinkling Creek?” He 
decided not to speak of the straw stack part of the episode. 
He knew the description he gave of her was too vague but 
he felt a reticence in describing her further. And when he 
stopped to think about it how would he go about to 
describe the vague charm she seemed to possess? He had a 
feeling that if he made the attempt it would sound both fool- 
ish and far-fetched. 

Mattie thought it must be Lena Denning. “Big and red- 
cheeked?” she wanted to know, “with light hair?” 

“No, the girl’s hair was brown,” he was quite sure, “a 
warm brown, and she was small and slight.” 

“Jessie Seeger, Ma!” Walt guessed. 

Mattie became voluble. “No, Jessie is little but nobody 


40 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


but a color-blind person would call her geranium-colored 
hair brown.” 

Warner was sorry that he had started Mattie off. He 
turned the subject as quickly as he could. After all it didn’t 
make much difference. But that awful language from a 
girl who looked like that! Advantages were not very evenly 
distributed in this world. 

All day he worked hard over his writing . . . an earnest 
last attempt to construct something which seemed pleasing 
and sincere. By evening he admitted failure. Disheartened 
and restless he ran his car out in the hope of driving off 
some of his low spirits. He had scarcely turned into the 
main road until a tire went down. Caring as little about 
taking the trip as he did he merely ran the car with its 
flat tire back under the shed and returned to the cabin. To 


his surprise there was a light in it. The front door, he- 


could plainly see, stood open. He walked quietly up to it 
and looked in. At the end of the room in front of the 
built-in cupboard stood the girl of the straw stack. She was 
wrapped in an old brown shawl, its dingy folds enveloping 
her head and slight body and the frayed wide fringe sweep- 
ing the floor. As he watched she leaned against the cup- 
board, a motionless, drooping figure, apparently overcome 
by some emotion. 

The pitiful little figure made a silent appeal to Warner 
so that he opened the screen door and stepped in. But at 
the first creaking of the hinges the girl snatched the shawl 
from her shoulders and thrust it into the unlocked drawer. 
As Warner took his first step into the room she was banging 
the drawer shut, locking it, and turning hastily to him. 

There was no mistake . . . it was the girl of the straw 
stack. But from the top of her warm brown hair to the toe 
of her daintily shod foot she was beautifully groomed. And 
she was erect, gay, smiling, in colorful contrast to the droop- 


fi 


THE LOCKED DRAWER Al 


ing little figure in the shawl he had just seen . . . a butter- 
fly slipping out from a brown cocoon. 

“Heavens! How you frightened me!” she said frankly. 
“T thought you had gone to town.” 

Warner stood stiff and unbending. The man does not live 
who enjoys being made a fool of. But evidently the un- 
yielding attitude of the tenant did not particularly affect the 
interloper for she said immediately, “Forgive me for this 
morning.” She threw him a frank, sparkling smile over 
white teeth and then broke into a laugh that was mis- 
chievous and merry. “It was pretty raw of me, but the way 
J was conducting myself . . . when I looked up and saw 
you, I just had to act the part. Under the circumstances I 
couldn’t very easily say, “How do you do? Mount Morris 
is my school. What’s yours?’ now, could I?” 

Warner had to unbend at that. She was so frank and 
_apparently so fun-loving that he could not carry the grudge, 
and he found himself swept by a sudden relief that she wag 
not the uncouth gamin of her pretense. 

“You’ve forgiven me, haven’t you?” She put out her 
hand. “I’m Nancy Moore.” 

Nancy Moore! 

As though a little information concerning her presence 
might not be out of order she added, “Uncle Jud and Aunt 
Biny left my things out here and when I thought you had 
gone away, I sneaked ...I mean ‘snuck’. ..” she 
grinned mischievously, “out to get some of them.” 

He was about to say, “And so youw’re Nancy Moore,” 
when he realized that only through his spying in the cup- 
board did he have any knowledge of such a person. In a 
- great sweep of contemptuous disgust for himself he was 
realizing that he had just read all her diaries . . . her 
innermost thoughts . . . and she must never know he had 
done so. : 


42 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


But she was explaining. “I’ve been away for four years. 
The last day I was home I started to slide down a straw 
stack for fun. But . .. something happened and I never 
did it. Now you see me coming back to take up my life for 
a few weeks where I left off. Well, I just naturally had to 
finish sliding down the straw stack, didn’t 1?” she asked 
naively, so that they both laughed. 

Immediately she turned back to the cupboard and opened 
the door. “Do you want to be in on the opening of the 
tomb?” She had a gay little air of friendliness. “Mum- 
mies, centuries old . .. alabaster boxes . . . papyrus 
scrolls . . .”. One by one she took the things down and 
_ looked them over: the doll, the dishes, some of the books. 
She handled them tenderly, making no apology for her 
silence. Against the light of the old kerosene lamp her 
profile, with its half-saucy look, was exquisite. Apparently 
she accepted Warner as part of the cabin’s stage property. 
And Warner, who was doing nothing visible to the naked 
eye, was busy ordering his mind to jump through hoops. . 
All because Nancy Moore was neither dead nor ancient but | 
alive and twenty-two. Who then was the old picture? She 
would probably show it to him and explain. But when she 
picked it up she slipped it into the drawer and locked it. 

Warner witheringly cursed his stars when the girl reached 
for one of the diaries. She read a few snatches here and 
there. Several times she laughed aloud and once he 
imagined she was winking back the tears. In a moment she 
turned to him again. “You’re writing?” 

He frowned at that. “Trying to,” he answered shortly. 

“Tt’s odd to find some one here writing. Years ago when 
it was_my playhouse I used to sit here and write. Wonder- 
ful stuff . . .” she shrugged her shoulder, “almost as good 
as the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. And you’re from the © 
East? How did you ever happen to come here?” Now — 


THE LOCKED DRAWER 43 


that she was certain that he did not remember her, she 
would play the part too. 

“East for many years ... Omaha was my _ boyhood 
home. I have known O. J. Rineland, president of the bank, 
since I was a youngster.” 

“‘Alice’s father? And what has become of Alice? Did 
she live to grow up? She was too perfect . . . correct in 
looks, speech, clothes, manners, actions.” 

In a voice that was an exact imitation of Alice’s breath- 
less, soft one, she went into a dramatic exaggeration: 


“And the stately lily stands 
Fair in the silvery light 
Like a saintly vestal, pale in prayer, 


Her pure breath sanctifies the air 
And her fragrance fills the night.’ ” 


’ Warner was nothing if not loyal. So he said a little 
stiffly, “Alice Rineland is a very fine girl and rather a good 
friend of mine.” 

She laughed again, gayly, tolerantly. “Then she has 
learned what friendship is? I’m glad of that. Me-aou ... 
me-aou! Catty ...amI not? But then I’ve never had 
any wings. Alice and I are made of different kinds of dust. 
She’s star-dust and I’m... . straw-dust,” she added mis- 
chievously. And they both laughed. “Could you, for in- 
stance, see Alice out of sheer exuberance of spirits putting 
on that little stunt of mine this morning?” 

“Good Lord, no,” he said so quickly that once more they 
both laughed. Which was not a bad thing for Warner 
Field, who, an hour before, had no intention of ever laugh- 
ing again. 

The girl was leaving. It brought Warner to say, “If this 
is your own particular cabin . . . I’m intruding. I was 


44, THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


leaving to-morrow afternoon but I could go at any time. . . 
to-night even. My car is parked down by the corn-crib. 
“And my possessions you see could be packed in a few 
minutes, .. .” 

“Oh, no.” She seemed unconcerned whether he went or 
stayed. “I'll take a few of the things over to the house 
with me. I want to read some of these.” She reached up 
for a bunch of the books in account with Jonathan Fair. 
Warner winced and kicked himself for a cad. “And Rosa- 
lind . . . poor youngster,” she picked up the stiff china 
doll, “I'll take her, too. What if you had done nothing for 
four years but sit and stare at a yellow pine door?” 

“T can sympathize with her entirely. For a year at least 
I’ve done nothing but sit and stare at a yellow pine door.” 

He watched the girl cross the lane road and the house 


yard until she disappeared behind the kitchen door. Through | 


it all he experienced a feeling that he had seen her some- 
where before. He could not throw off the idea that this was 
not the first time he had met her. Perhaps after all the 
solution was no flesh and blood girl but a character in a 
book. For she might have been Babbie who had come dane- 
ing through Caddam Wood and who was both gypsy and 


lady of high degree, mischievous, willful and tender. But ) 


what was the thing that had happened to send her away? 
Something told him that he would not ask the Rinelands 
about her now nor even Miss Rilla. 


For a long time Warner Field sat on the edge of the | 


orchard and looked across Tinkling Creek to the rolling 
prairie land overhung by night and its thousand eyes. Over 


the sleeping community the spirit of the prairie brooded, | 
dim and deep and mysterious. There were all the multitu- a 


dinous sounds of the country about him, a tree toad, the © 


low mooing of one of Jud Moore’s cows, the whispered stir 


of birds in the maples. In all this prosaic environment of 


re 


THE LOCKED DRAWER 45 


the community into which he had been thrust by a turn of 
the wheel, was it possible that drama went on ceaselessly 
like the undulating motion of the seas of yellow wheat? 
He looked at the white figures on his watch. It was nine- 
fifty. At that moment, over in Maple City, Alice Rineland 
came out on the balcony of the Italian Renaissance house 
built with Nebraska corn-fed-hog money and looked wist- 
fully out toward the Jud Moore farm. Down on Main and 
Tenth Miss Ann and Miss Rilla sat on the east porch of the 
““Bee-House.” Miss Rilla talked of the beauty of the night 
and Miss Ann scolded about the price of food. Twins! But 
as far apart as Mary and Martha, as far apart as the stars 
and pork chops. Inside the “Bee-House,” Miss Gunn, a 
green shade over her eyes, read a treatise on mental culture 
and Marty Spencer read a joke book. The Kendalls blew 
hot and cold between denunciations and forgiveness. Am- 
brose Jones, the bore, sorted his neckties and brushed his 
“neat, thinly worn suit. Mary Mae Gates sat at the old piano 
which the Judge had shipped out from Chicago in pioneer 
days, and sang “O Sole Mio,” the vision of an enthralled 
opera audience before her. Helen Blakely did up her hair 
in sleep-destroying curlers . . . little pebbles with which to 
kill her Goliath in the form of Dr. Pearson. Major Slack 
dreamed over a box of pictures taken at Havana and San 
Juan. Essie Carison, the waitress, breathless and anxious, 
hurried along home under the lacy elms. As she reached 
the porch of the little Carlson home by the creamery, Dr. 
Pearson, perspiring and tired, in a white operating gown, 
came out. “It’s all right now, Essie. Another little brother.” 
A quarter of a mile away Mattie Thomas sat on the porch, 
trying to get a cool breath by whacking a stiff palm-leaf 
fan against her mountainous bosom. Walt came in from | 
turning his heavy clumsy team into the pasture for the 
night. He walked hurriedly up to the porch where his 


\ 
46 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


mother was sitting and said breathlessly, a little thickly, 
“Ma, Nancy’s come home.” 

In the box-shaped farmhouse near by, old Jud Moore 
finished reading his Omaha daily and threw it down on the 
floor beside his chair. Then he stood up, stretched his huge 
arms and said, “Well, I’ve always said a bed’s a good 
invention,” as he had done every night for years. Aunt 
Biny picked up the paper, folded it neatly and put it in 
the paper rack, as she had done every night for years. 
Nancy Moore laughed at them both, a gay little rippling 
laugh. It seemed that she had not been away at all... . 
that things were just as they had been. 

It was a cross-section of life. You may cut through the 
circumference of any community, anywhere, at any time 
of day or night, and find all the intergrown grainings of 
drama. It was as though, unseeing, Warner Field sensed all 
these details, could look into the homes. For a few moments — 
he felt close to the people, sensitive to their desires and 
ambitions, sympathetic with their troubles and pleasures, 
a deep kinship with the community. The sensation almost 
lighted the blackened fagots of his talent. By the glow of 
its small flame, he seemed for a brief, breath-catching 
moment to be regaining the thing he had lost. Then like 
the tantalizing flickering of a match it vanished, and the old 
sense of dull disappointment and wretched failure enveloped 
him. 

As he rose to go in he thought of the girl who had 
come home. Again that page, broken, blurred, erased, 
haunted him. “My mind is crowded with a thousand things 
to write but I shall never write in you again.” What had 
happened to her? Why had she gone away? Why had 
she come back? And why did she want no one to see 
an old brown shawl? 


CHAPTER V 
SUNDAY 


T sprinkled at intervals all Saturday night. 

On Sunday morning Walt Thomas was up and out 

early, mechanicaily doing his chores in the mist. He 

had not slept well. It was as though an old wound had 

been opened with Nancy Moore’s unexpected arrival. He 

- had been getting along fairly well the last year. For three 

years before that he had carried a dull ache around with 

him always. And now, just as he had been getting over 

it, she had come back. For a moment he hid his drawn 

face against the smooth coat of his best brood mare. Then 

his mother called him to breakfast and he straightened 
himself and went in. 

Mattie, moving her enormous weight easily about the 
range, was taking up the breakfast. She had pancakes, 
sausage, baked eggs, fried potatoes, biscuits and coffee. 
She was hoping it was plenty for that nice Mr. Field. 

Mattie Thomas had once had a husband. Where he was 
now she did not know and Mattie’s greatest fear was that 
some day he would suddenly decide that he had misused 
her by departing unceremoniously to parts unknown and 
return to make reparations. As reparations, whether they 
be foreign or domestic, involve largely the elements of 
energy and activity, Mattie knew that they would never be 
carried out. For Hank Thomas had been one of those cheer- 
ful people to whom success lies always just over the brow 
of the hill. His pursuit of her had consisted of little short 
breathless runs which always ended in flat failure. One 

47 


Ate 


48 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


of these brief journeys had consisted in peddling extracts 
and veterinary supplies and it might have ended in a vast 
fortune if the peddler, in a moment of daydreaming, had not 
sold horse medicine to a nearsighted country soul, who very 
nearly flavored her cake with it, and given a pint bottle of 
vanilla to a sick mule. The mule did not seem to care, but 
the fussy country woman did and, by a quick and judicious 
use of the telephone, destroyed his business. Once he had 
canvassed for a book. It was a bulky and gilt-edged volume 
on etiquette but when delivered was found to contain such 
out-of-date advice that if followed would have landed the 
perpetrator in a large brick building with bars at the 
-windows. These books were now used largely in the Maple 
City neighborhood for doorstops or for the company’s 
baby to perch upon while eating. 


Hank Thomas’s harness had been held together with 


cords, spikes, horse-blanket pins, ropes and chains. Pepper 
grass had killed his clover. Indigestion had killed his cow. 
Cholera had killed his hogs. The sight of work had killed 
his ambition. Walt’s earliest and last recollection of his 
father was sitting on the parental lap while Hank sang a 
cheerful song both unenthusiastic and original: 


“Papa’s got the shingles, 
And papa’s got the na-ails, 
But papa hasn’t pu-ut 
The shingles on the roof.” 


Mattie with grim endeavor had brought Walt up to work. 
If for one moment she detected a sign of loitering in him, 
she had gone after him rigorously. As a result Walt at 
twenty-three was industrious and hard-working. No one 
in the neighborhood could beat him in getting up early and 
into the field. He was all mother. His father was non- 
existent. He had just ceased to be. 


SUNDAY 49 


Mr. Field had not come to breakfast. So the two sat down 
to eat. 

“Anything more you want, Walt?” 

“No, Ma, I got plenty.” 

When Warner Field woke that morning he heard the 
rain on the roof. His first thought was of the girl who 
had come home . . . Nancy Moore, who was not an ancient 
girl but a most modern one. His second thought was that 
he didn’t care enough about one of Mattie’s huge break- 
fasts to go through the rain for it. He dressed and sat 
down by the window that looked toward Tinkling Creek. 
The rain was not a hard one, rather a fine slow drizzle. 
The maples and elms drooped clammily but the cotton- 
woods shook off the drops from their gossamer-coated 
leaves. He had just started to read one of the books he 
had brought with him when there was a knock. He swung 
the door back to find the girl herself standing there. She 
had on an old battered hat and baggy, weather-stained coat 
of her uncle’s and, dripping with rain, was apparently 
indifferent to her grotesque appearance. 

With that characteristic merry laugh she held out a big 
basket. “I’ve brought you your breakfast. What big ears 
you have, grandmother.” 

“The better to hear you, my dear,” Warner answered 
nimbly enough and they both laughed at their home-grown 
wit. Strange how she had the faculty of making him forget 
his troubles. 

“Come in out of the rain,” he scolded. “Good heavens, 
why did you do this for me?” | 

“Oh, don’t give me the credit.” She slipped in and shook 
off the water like the cottonwoods. “It was Aunt Biny. She 
had visions of finding your skeleton here on the floor by 
noon.” She began taking out the dishes; baked apple, 
oatmeal, cream, toast and a pot of coffee. When she had 


50 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


finished she waved her hand invitingly: “Draw up. “Better 
is a dry morsel and quietness therein than an house full of 
sacrifices and strife.’ Aunt Biny made me learn that once 
up in my room after I had lost my temper and said a lot 
of saucy things to Uncle Jud.” 

“Yesterday morning,” Warner said irrelevantly, “I was 
wondering if I couldn’t find some way to teach you.” 

She laughed gayly and then grew suddenly sober. “Oh, 
there are things you could teach me, no doubt.” In a few 
moments she had left as breezily as she had arrived. Warner 
had the feeling that a fresh moist wind had blown through 
the little cabin. | | 

At noon he ate his last meal with Mattie and Walt. The 
boy was sober, noncommunicative, his somber eyes on his 
food. When Warner left, it was with a final word of 
praise for Mattie’s cooking and a promise to come and see 
them again. 

_ In the late afternoon he packed his things and went up to 
the farmhouse. Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny were there alone. 
The old man was complaining about the rain. 

“There ain’t been enough of it. Everything was dry and 
needed it bad. Ain’t done nothin’ but drizzle a little like 
it didn’t know how. Ground won’t be fit for winter wheat, 
you'll just see.” : 

“Pa! Pa!” Aunt Biny chided him. “It all turns out all 
right. “T'was a nice little rain and we'll get more.” 

“T’ll believe it when I see it comin’ down,” he fussed. 

Warner asked for Miss Moore, but she had gone to. 
Walt’s and Mattie’s. 

As he drove out of the lane and turned toward Maple 


City the roads were already nearly dry. A little sun and i 


a little wind on a Nebraska road and it forgets it has ever 


been wet. When he came to the long row of Lombardy © 
poplars at the edge of Walt’s land he was still undetermined — 


18] 


SUNDAY ol 


whether or not fo drive in and see the girl. He decided 
it seemed a child’s trick to follow her up to the neighbors. 
He would come out again in a few days. His foot, hitting 
the typewriter, reminded him that he had accomplished 
nothing. It brought back his dispirited mood. You cannot 
write because you have plenty of leisure or an appropriate 
place. Of that he was convinced for all time. His ex- 
perience was like that of the man in Van Dyke’s “Lost 
Word.” He seemed able to do everything passably but the 
thing he wanted to do . . . get back again to his writing. 
He had lost the knack. As he passed the Rinelands’ he 
could hear the exquisite notes of Godard’s “Berceuse” from 
_Alice’s piano. 

At the “Bee-House” the usual monotony pervaded the 
lunch hour. Every one was-in his place excepting the Ken- 
dalls and Dr. Pearson. The conversation was miscellaneous 
and disconnected. It had as little pattern as a hit-and-miss 
rag carpet, with each one harping on his own little com- 
plaint. Mary Mae Gates held the floor for a time. “I have 
to get in a practice with the choir before the service. I 
have to sing alone, too.” She was hurried and drooping with 
fatigue. “At this late hour, even, I’m undecided whether to 
use an ‘Ave Maria’ or something from ‘Stabat Mater.’ 
So many people seem to like me in both.” 

The Kendalls, moving with Maple City’s daring little 
group of Ishmaelites, had gone to a mah jongg lunch. They 
had to go in Oriental costume and George and Genevieve 
had had some words about it. “I hate the darn stuff and 
I feel like a fool in that heathen petticoat,” he had said. 
What he had wanted to do was to take a walk out in the 
country after the rain. But Genevieve had set her foot, 
already encased in its red padded slipper, down on that 
crazy idea and they had gone to the lunch. 

“Doctor is operating,” Helen Blakely announced, un- 


52 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


able to keep an inflection of pride out of her voice. She 
always pronounced the title “Doctor” as though it belonged 
exclusively to one man. “On the smallest Bornheimer boy 
for a lung drainage after pneumonia.” 

Miss Rilla’s eyes filled with ready tears. “Poor Mrs. 
Bornheimer! She lost her husband so recently too.” 

“She ought to have known better than to let a child go 
out so soon after measles,” was Miss Ann’s acrid comment. 
““She’s one of those people without a lick of sense.” 

Miss Gunn had been reading about the epoch of Chartism 
in Great Britain. “I couldn’t remember the date of the 
insurrection of the common people against the Toll Roads,” 
she explained apologetically. “For one thing I’ve been 
upset. My second-grade teacher has gone home ill and Dr. 
Minnish says she won’t be able to come back. We'll have 
to have green normal-training students from high school 
for a few days until we can get some one permanently. It 
seems that life is just one thing after another.” 

Marty Spencer said he: had seen a good one in the paper 
that afternoon. “A man asked a darky, “Doesn’t that mule 
ever kick you?’ And the darky said, ‘No, sah, he ain’t 
yet but he frequently kicks de place where ah recently 
was.’ Pretty good . . . what?” 2 

Major Slack dropped a few weighty bricks of con- 
victions into the conversational pool where they settled 
heavily and undisputably to the bottom. 

Ambrose Jones darted his head foolishly here and there 
to catch what every one was saying. Warner answered a 
few questions. Yes, he had had a pleasant vacation. No, 
he hadn’t found it too warm. He spoke pleasantly, per- 
functorily, his mind preoccupied. CGood-by thrushes and 
lilacs and orchard and Tinkling Creek. Good-by my 
prairie! And most of all 'zood-by Nancy Moore! Oh, 
Nancy Moore, I loved you! Good-by. 


: CHAPTER VI 
THE OLD GENERATION AND THE NEW 


? N Monday morning out at the old square farmhouse 
() Nancy Moore was dusting the sitting room. She 
ran the cloth tenderly over a brown plaster cast 
of Napoleon Bonaparte. “Bony,” she addressed him con- 
fidentially, “I see you still have a chip off your nose and 
a crack behind your left ear from the time I threw you 
_ on the floor in a tantrum. I take this occasion to apologize. 
Inasmuch as I’ve had a chip taken out of my nose and a 
crack administered behind my ear, figuratively speaking, 
_ we'll consider all old scores settled.” 

As she stooped to dust the Hank Thomas book on etiquette 
that acted as doorstop, she told herself that not a thing in 
the house had been changed in the four years. Nothing 

was different but the dates on the First National Bank 
calendar and the Omaha newspapers. She rose and took 
an inventory of the old room. 

The stout ingrain carpet with its familiar pattern was. 
stretched taut over the floor. Nancy knew just what was 
underneath it... a layer of newspapers, a load of fresh 
oat straw, another layer of papers and then the carpet. 
She could see the old folks as they had put it down, Uncle 
Jud jawing and fussing and scolding as he stretched, and 
Aunt Biny, patient, mild, reproving him with her “Pa! Pa!” 
Uncle Jud had made and painted the bookcase. It had a 
red plush curtain run on a brass rod. The table with its 
fringed red and green cover ‘held the newspapers and the 

Bible, the two pairs of glasses and the lamp. There was 
¥ SG 8 


i 


- *54 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


a tin thimble over the hole into which the pipe of the huge 
coal burner would be put in a few weeks. In one corner was 
the old piano and in another the lumpy, hollowed-out couch 
with the green denim cover on which Aunt Biny lay for 
many short periods in the day, her crutch by her sides There 
was Napoleon of the chipped nose and a bunc silk 
sweet peas, long faded, colorless in a blue vase. There was 
a framed picture of the farm buildings themselves and an 
enlarged one of the little two-yéar-old daughter that had 
died, and whose place Nancy had taken. Three large por- 
traits of past presidents looked tolerahtly down from their 
vantage points almost to the ceiling. Lincoln, McKinley, 
Roosevelt, the ten commandments, Aunt Biny, Nebraska, and 
the Republican party .. / these were the pillars on which 
Uncle Jud’s life was built . ». the things that were flaw- 
less, unchangeable and inviolate. 

The room looked old and homely, but it had the look 
of a faithful friend, or a mother who welcomes her child to 
an ample lap. Nancy curled up in the big brown cretonne- 
covered chair. It was a homely cretonne with stiff bunches 
of cherries at stated intervals and with one of Aunt Biny’ ‘Ss 
neat patches on it. But once Nancy had dreamed drez 
in it and.it seemed friendly. Some of those dreams 
materialized. One of them she realized clearly was never 
to come true. She smiled ruefully. Oh, well, one’s outlook 
on life changed. It made her think of the diaries upstairs. 
She wondered if she would enjoy putting down all her 
reactions to life now as she had done then. No... she 
would never write in them again. 


And then Aunt Biny, rolling down her sleeves, came into — 


the room. She had just finished her churning, eight pounds — 


of butter for the Rinelands and the Baldwin girls’ boarding 
house. She sat down now, near the bay window, her crutch 
by her side. 


THE QLD GENERATION AND THE NEW 55 


_ “Nancy, [’ve been alone with you so little, with Pa always 
around all day Saturday and yesterday. I’ve been wanting 
to talk to you alone. You’re real sure you love this Mr. 
Farnsworth you’re going to marry?” 

For flash of an eye Nancy caught her lip in her 
teeth and turned her head. Then she was poised and gay. 
“Why, of course I do, Aunt Biny. At least I will. I’m 
just builtgthat way. [’m just naturally crazy about every- 
thing that belongs to me . . . shoes, parasols, dogs, flowers, 

beads, husbands. .. .” 

“That’s flippant, Nancy.” 

“Flippant but true.” 

“Real love doesn’t have a flippant attitude.” 

“Real love, Aunt Biny, belongs to another generation. 
It “Was out with rubber-tired buggics, and castors for center 
pieces.” 

Aunt Biny flushed. “It better come back in then. It 
takes a lot of it to keep things going.” 

eh takes solid substantial silver sixpences to keep things 
Pa ins, dear one? » Love is too fragile a star to hitch your 
little wagort to.’ 

“Ipjisn’t fragile, Nancy. It’s strong ... the strongest 
‘thing on earth. It carries you through, ecw clear 
to the end.” 

Nancy shrugged her shoulder. “You can’t buy gasoline 
with it. Faith, hope and a bank account, and the greatest 
of these is a bank account.” 

“Don’t say things you don’t mean.” 

_ “But I mean them, Aunt Biny, every single word. I’ve 
been around. I’m-not provincial any more. And it simply 
isn’t done. People don’t look any more for that high 
ecstatic love as you think of it. I may have dreamed dreams 
like that myself a few years ago. But I’m more practical 
now. It’s nice to be here with you, Aunt Biny, for a little 


56 3 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


while. I’m foolish over the farm and getting back for a 
time. But I know little Nancy too well now to make myself 
believe I could give up the things I’ve been used to. They 
have become a vital part of my happiness and I’m wise 
enough to realize it.” : 

“Love hasn’t much to do with things.” 

“Which proves how weak-minded love is.” 3 

Two spots stood out on Aunt Biny’s pale cheeks like the 
pinkest of her ‘petunias. “Wait, Nancy, just wait until it 
comes. ‘There be three things which are too wonderful 
for me, Yea four, which I know not. The way of an eagle 
in the air, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship 
in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a 


oe 


maid.’ ”’ 

“Old stuff, Aunt Biny. Aviators have found out the way 
of the eagle. The serpents on the rocks turned out to be 
bathing beauties. Ships are as tractable as lambs and the 
maids are all wise to the ways of the men.” 

“That’s sacrilegious, Nancy.” 

“Sacrilegious but so. It’s the times, Aunt Biny. It’s 
neither your fault nor mine that we're at such opposite 
points of thought. It’s the times that have changed.” » 

“Human nature hasn’t changed.” 3 4 

“T think you’re mistaken. You've been sheltered and 
hemmed in with your old-fashioned notions and they've 
grown to be your little household gods. You’ve worked 
terribly hard all your life to get the lower eighty paid for 
and now you’re comfortably fixed. If I choose to begin 
at the other end with the money. . . .” 

Aunt Biny looked down the petunia-bordered path. Hei 
eyes misted a little. : 

“Yes, I’ve worked hard. When your Uncle Jud and | 
came we had a team and one hundred and eighty dollars 
It took one hundred and sixty dollars to buy the uppe 


THE OLD GENERATION AND THE NEW 57. 


eighty. A team, and some household goods, eighty acres of 
raw land . . . twenty dollars . . . the baby . . . Jud and 
I... and our love. .. .” 

“I appreciate all that, Aunt Biny. I’m not hard-hearted, 
just level-headed. I think your coming here into the new 
country with the man you loved was wonderful. I think 
you were brave and courageous and I grant that you loved 
Uncle Jud dearly. But it would be perfectly witless for 
me to follow a poor man in the same way. I belong to the 
new generation and I’d die for the things I’ve been used- 
to the last few years.” 

“I left nice things back in Indiana, too. Maybe you 
wouldn’t call them so now. But in comparison with what I 
came to, they were very fine. But I went with the man 
I loved, just for love.” 

“It listens well, Aunt Biny. It sounds perfectly enticing. 
Jf I read it in a book I’d lap it up. If I saw it on the 
stage I’d be miserable until the play ended right. If it 
was on the screen my nose would be red when I came out 
into the light of day. But take note of this . . . the new 
generation comes out of the theater or lays down the book, 
all fired with romance . . . and trots right off and turns 
down romance for realism.” 

“I can’t admit it, Nancy. I’m old and I’m a country 
woman. But real love hasn’t lost its charm, I’m sure. 
When I look back and think of all of us young couples 
fifty years ago, coming across the new country in wagons, 
full of hope for new homes . . . and love the very warmth 
of those homes . . . I can’t think the light of it died out.” 

“Maybe not, Aunt Biny. And it was really wonderful, that 
influx of young couples long ago. I was thinking about it 
yesterday when I came across the pasture from Mattie’s. 
It was a wonderful and courageous thing to do, but there’s 
“nobody of that caliber any more. My whole point is that 


98 | THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE, 


we're luxury-loving enough to prefer to warm ourselves at 
good old steam heat instead of the little will-o »’-the-wisp 
light you followed.” 

At sight of the grieved expression on the coule old 
woman’s face, Nancy sprang up and ran over to her with 
impulsive caresses. “It worries you, doesn’t it, Aunt Biny? 
I’m sorry. I guess I’ve given you nothing but worry. It’s too 
bad you ever took me to raise. Ill be good. [Il try to 
idolize Mr. Farnsworth. He’s getting a bit bald on the north 
mansard roof slope of his head and he’s a little too short 
and a little too fat and a lot older than the hero ought to 
be. But I'll do my best to moon over him. . . .” 

On Monday morning Warner went early io the bank. 
He went thoughtfully. As he turned out of the “Bee-House” 
yard into Main Street he was thinking that from this day 
he must apply himself with all his mind and energy to his 
present position. This was the day in which he was 
definitely making up his mind to stay by it, to work up 
in it, perhaps . . . who knew . . . to become eventually the 
head of the institution. It was his future. Walking along 
in the pleasant September morning, he reviewed the turn of 
the wheel that had brought him back to the mid-west in 


which he was born and from which he had made his 


escape years before. He had gone in a circle. His early 


days in Omaha... an eastern boys’ school . . . col-| 
lege ... a certain small success among the younger 
‘writers in the East ... back to Omaha to attend his| 
father’s funeral and settle the estate . . . here in Maple 


City. 


been forty years before that Matthew Field, Warner’s| 
father, had brought his bride to the young town that stood| 


like an adolescent boy uncertain how large he is to grow} 


or what he is to be. Omaha did not know then in which 


| 
| 


| 
| 


k 


. The Field family had been well known in Omaha. It sad 


THE OLD GENERATION AND THE NEW — 59 


direction it was going to grow. It was not sure what type 
of city it was to become. There was a question concerning 
the trend of its chief industries. But it was busy. If it 
had little time for things artistic it was because of its con- 
stant labor. 

Warner’s father had been one of those men who seem 
to be essential to a city’s social life but who never grow 
rich. His mother was one of those women who never become 
resigned to a change of abode. With her heart in Massachu- 
setts, she spent all the days of her life in Omaha in a state 
of temporary residence, thinking that as soon as they had 
made money to retire on they would go back. She seemed 
_ always poised like a bird for flight. Every year she made 
the trip back East and returned discontentedly to the West. 

She saw trees grow from saplings to huge living monu- 
ments of foliage. She saw cow pastures turned to trim 
residential grounds and virgin prairie to paved boulevards. 
She saw proud buildings rear their heads above the provin- 
cial hill streets. She saw the crude town grow into a sophisti- 
cated city, saw it develop in music and literature and art. 
And she never sensed the wonder and beauty of the growth. 

Mr. Field had been entirely transplanted. His heart was 
in Omaha. He had watched it grow with deep rejoicing. If 
he could have had his way, his son and daughter would have 
_ gone to the public school, a great vigorous thing that con- 
stantly stretched and snapped its binding chains. But from 
much coaching of the son and daughter by their mother and _ 
eventual winning of her way, Warner and Eleanor, his 
sister, had gone away and stayed. Mrs. Field had the self- 
righteous feeling that she had saved them from some in- 
sidious influence. 

On his way to the bank now Warner went over for the 
_ hundredth time the odd chance that had brought him to 
_ Maple City. After the war, he had become a member of the 


| soem 


60 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Review staff, continuing in the meantime his free-lance 
fiction writing. Later had come his father’s tragic death, 
with everything in an upheaval. Then had followed 
Warner’s own und his mother’s severe illness in the influenza 
epidemic, during which they had both nearly lost their 
lives. It was just at the close of his period of convalescence 
from pneumonia, that he had met his father’s old friend, 
O. J. Rineland, on the streets of Omaha. They had gone up 
to the Commercial Club together, an organization in which 
Mr. Rineland held an out-of-town membership, and_ talked 
for a long time. Warner was just at the point of getting 
down to work again. His position on the Review filled, 
his father’s tragic death a severe memory, a big debt hanging 
over him, Mr. Rineland’s proposal came at the only time 
in his life when he would have given serious heed to it. 
The banker had come to Omaha for the express purpose 
of getting information from a banking bureau for the 
right young man to come into the Maple City institution. 
If Warner, now, had ever thought of taking up such a 
business, here was his chance. There was a small staff 
with more than an ordinary possibility of promotion. For 
some time they discussed it. 

So, from this chance meeting with an dtd friend came the 
decisive hour. And so spider-fine are the threads that 
change the courses of our lives, that an Omaha policeman, 


halting traffic at the psychological moment on the corner 


of Sixteenth and Farnam Streets, had changed the direction 
of Warner’s life. 

For eight months then he had been in the Maple City 
bank. As for the old writing, to-day seemed to determine 
that he was putting it aside, perhaps permanently. One 
could not tell. He wondered if there was ever another 
writer anywhere who had experienced this same thing . . . 
apparently a complete loss of the faculty to execute. He 


mat 


| 
: 


THE OLD GENERATION AND THE NEW 61 


could have written, of course, after a fashion. But his own 
critical sense would not accept anything he had done since 
his illness. He could almost hear the comments: “Poor 
Field . . . he’s certainly flattened out into nothing.” 
Better not write at all than subject himself to that sort of 
criticism. 

_ The past week had been a test . . . the only time since 
his illness in which he had held himself down definitely for 
hours to the work of composition. And with all his en- 
deavors, the knack of it simply would not return. Perhaps 
there was left some definite effect of his illness that touched 
the delicate portion of the brain which had done construc- 
tive work. Almost immediately he was scoffing at the idea. 
He felt too well again, too fit: Such a trouble would have 
left its trace on his general health. No, it was just a 
slumping of ability. No excuse existed. The fault was his 
own. Perhaps if he kept on fumbling at it he might some 
day strike the lost ... why, it was like the old song 
of the lost chord. Perhaps, then, by constant fumbling, he 
would some day hear that “grand Amen.” He grinned at 
the thought. Thank heaven, he hadn’t entirely mislaid his 
sense of humor if he had lost his power to construct. 

He went through the heavy swinging doors of the old 
bank now. Strange how the trim, newly decorated room with 
its tasteful polished desks seemed so jail-like. He set his 
lips in severity. He said in self-chastisement that he was 
lucky to get in with Mr. Rineland at all. Mentally he took 
himself by the collar and shook the dissatisfied creature he 
was and told him to take cognizance of the fact that from 
henceforth he was in the banking business. 

In a few moments Marty Spencer breezed in, with, “Good 
morning, Merry Sunshine.” Marty always affected that 
surfacelike gayety. Mr. Rineland, neat, dapper, dignified, 
every gray hair in place, came in. The other boys took 


ae 


at oh Dae 


62 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE, 


their places. The first school bell rang. The town clock 
pointed to eight-thirty. A little old lady came timidly in 
for a dollar in change and one of the grocerymen deposited 
his Saturday night’s receipts. The day’s grind had begun. 

In the late forenoon Alice Rineland came into the bank. 
Warner looked up to see her standing by her father’s desk, 
soft-eyed, pale and pretty in a blue dress. Outside he could 
see her sedan, spotless and shining, standing at the curb. 
Alice talked to her father for a few moments and then 
walked over to Warner. Marty Spencer winked at the paying 


teller. “Better keep in Field’s gsod graces. Your future 


boss, mayhap.” 
Alice greeted Warner with that warm flooding of her 
gray-blue eyes. “You spent a whole week in the country?” 
“Yes, summer-resorting on the board walk of Tinkling 


Creek.” He made light of it. 


“However could you? When I go away from Maple 
City, it’s to get right into the heart of things . . .. theaters, 
operas, a big hotel. Maple City itself is countrified enough 
for me. Mama and I are going to New York in the winter.” 

“That’s fine. You’ll look up Mother and Eleanor, won’t 
you? Oh, I enjoyed the country, tramping around. You 
know ‘to him who in the love of nae etc. And Jud 
Moore proved to be a very interesting man.’ 

Alice opened her gray-blue eyes. “That old man with his 
pioneer yarns? Why he says ‘have went’ and ‘that there.’ ” 

Warner laughed. “Yes, I guess he does that all right.” 

When Alice went out Warner was wondering if she knew 
that Nancy Moore was back. 

From that, the thought of Nancy Moore persistently in- 
truded between the files on which he was working. He told 
himself there was something aloof and tantalizing about 
her. Part of her was away. One knew that: all of Alice 
Rineland was definitely before one. But—something warm 


THE OLD GENERATION AND THE NEW 63 


and personal about Nancy Moore was gone. Something cool’ 

and teasing remained . . . as though she only talked to you 
from far away. He caught himself up. At least he would 
make no comparisons between the two. And Alice Rineland 
was a nice girl. He found himself defending her. “Did 
she live to grow up? She was too perfect.” He heard 
Nancy’s laugh, far away, gay, mocking. 


CHAPTER VII 
NANCY COMES TO A DECISION 


awoke that he was going to drive out to the Moore 

farm before night. It was the courteous thing to 
do. There were swift heavy showers all morning but cars 
were running again by late afternoon. After dinner he 
ran his car out from the turreted old Baldwin barn. As he 
did so, Miss Rilla stepped out on the back porch to hang up 
some rinsed tea towels. He called to her, “Get your hat, 
Miss Rilla, and drive out in the country with me.” 

Miss Rilla flushed with pleasure. She was fifty-four by 
- the acknowledged statement of her twin sister but in her 
heart she was twenty. She came down the steps in a remark- 
ably short time, a plump, motherly figure . . . she who 
was no mother. 

Everything in the country seemed fresh after the rain of 
the previous night. Nature had scrubbed all her decora- 
tions. The sumac showed its pink tips instead of the tawny 
dust-covered leaves of the days previous. The orchards 
were heavy with apples. It had been a good year for them 
and the multi-colored fruit weighted the trees. Already 
the Farmers Union storage house was being filled with 
yellow-green Golden Glows and shining red Jonathans. The | 
goldenrod waved gay clean plumage at the roadside. A 
flock of blackbirds circled and winged and wheeled them- | 
selves in aeronautic formation. 

They drove into Mattie’s and Walt’s side yard, a bare 
place with a big pile of wood near the porch. Miss Rilla 


Q: Wednesday morning Warner knew the moment he 


I 


64. 


ee 
- 


NANCY COMES TO A DECISION 65 


knew both of them. Mattie, it seemed, had come into town — 
once to help them out with their cooking when Miss Ann 
was sick. Walt brought them their cobs every fall and some- 
times sausage and spare ribs. Mattie, voluble and hospitable, 
carried her huge bulk out to the car. She wanted them to 
get out and come in and eat something. It took quite an 
effort to persuade her that food was unnecessary to them at 
‘that time. Walt stood back a little, quiet and sober. Warner 
had learned to like him. He drew him out to talk about 
the farm work. 

The sun was down at the horizon when they turned into 
the Moore yard behind the cottonwoods. Warner saw the 
white of the girl’s dress before they were out of the lane. 
She was crossing the barnyard with a basket of eggs which 
she waved gayly if perilously. As she came up to the car, 
Warner acknowledged to himself that the curve of her 
throat and the contour of her face were lovelier than he 
had remembered. 

Miss Rilla got out of the car with prim heavy slowness 
and kissed her. As per her usual custom she nearly shed 
tears. “I’ve never seen you since the night you graduated, 
Nancy. You looked so pretty and girlish standing there 
with your diploma. I said to sister afterward: ‘Well, maybe 
Alice Rineland had the finest dress there but Nancy Moore 
looked the prettiest.’ ” 

_ Nancy laughed. “And I’ll wager Miss Ann said, ‘Don’t 
ever tell her so. It would turn her head.’ ” 

“TI expect she did. Sister means well. She just never lets 
herself say all the nice things she thinks.” 

A little of the girl’s gayety vanished. “Aunt Biny had 
a bad spell this afternoon. That makes the second in less 
than two weeks.” 

Together the three walked to the house. Uncle Jud had 
just finished his chores and was standing by the side door 


66 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


telling Ma he had a notion not to plow the little piece of 
rye ground by the creek. “Believe I’ll let that little passel 
go till spring. If the creek runs over, like it did last year, 
the plowin’ is wasted. Don’t feel like doin’ any work any 
more that ain’t necessary. Gettin’ as lazy as Hank Thomas 
used to be.” Aunt Biny had noticed several references lately 
to a lack of energy on Uncle Jud’s part. — 

Miss Rilla and Nancy went into the house but Warner 
stopped on the porch to talk to the old man. 

“Dandy weather, Mr. Moore.” Warner knew that the 
weather topic never failed to appeal. ; 

For the average city dweller, weather is fairly inconse- 
quential, a thing to be enjoyed, endured, or ignored. To 
country people it is the big thing ... the god of the 
farm .... the arbiter of destiny. Fortune responds to its 
‘smile. Disaster follows its frown. 

_ “Pretty good ... yes, sir. Not like some I’ve seen. 
Wind! that’s the worst. Seen the wind blow here in 
Nebraska like old Nick himself. Biggest dust storm we ever 
had was in April .. . eighty-two, I believe. Ain’t right 
sure about that. Ma!” He stepped to the screen door. 
“Which year’d old man Denning die in . . . eighty-one or 
two?” | 

“T don’t just recollect, Pa,” Aunt Biny said weakly from © 
her chair. “I got it in my scrap book, though.” 

. “Anyway, remember ’twas when the old man died. Blew 
three days. steady from the southwest. Everybody had 
plowed. You wouldn’t believe it, but it blew the plowed 
dirt right out o’ the field. That’s God A’mighty’s truth. 
Blew it in great sheets, where it piled up agin’ trees ’n 
hedges. Got a place ‘in my pasture can show you to this 
day where it made windrows of the dirt, piled it in long | 
swells like waves. Rain come at the end of three days and 
packed it. Made that pasture hummocky ever since. Old 


NANCY COMES TO A DECISION 67 


man Denning died first of the three days. Buried him on 
the last. Had him in a spring wagon. Six pallbearers had 
to walk alongside and hold him down. Thought it’d blow 
his body into kingdom-come alongside o’ his soul. Don’t 
blow that hard much any more. Wind hits it up pretty 
fair once in a while but it’s been years since I’ve seen the 
land raise right up and Nebraska pretty near blow off the 
et Funny how a country changes. Settlin’ it all up, I 
spose. Vegetation or somethin’. Or mebbe too many real 
estate men ure Major Slack talkin’ for wind to run any 
competition.” He slapped his knee and roared, loud enor- 
mous laughter. 

“°N snow,” he went on, “that’s a horse of another 
stripe . . . had lots of blizzards but when they say ‘the 
blizzard’ put it in your pipe that it means The Blizzard. 
That was in eighty-eight. Ain’t no trouble to remember that 
date . . . twelfth of January .. . eighty-eight. Day was 
mild ’n ordinary, even warm... no indication of what 
was to come. I rec’lect Nick Denning come down to see 
me about some fences . . . wanted I should go in with him 
for a fence on the south half of the upper eighty. Set 
talkin’ in the front room of the old house out there. He'd 
tied his horse to a post right near where that there straw 
stack is. Clouds come up in the northwest .. . rolled 
up like slate-colored smoke.” Unconsciously dramatic, he 
pointed out everything with his long powerful arms... 
the old house, the post, the clouds in the west. 

“Rumbled! Like wagons comin’ up the road. Snow 
started. Just fell in big clammy bunches at first. I mind 
how Nick looked out ’n said, ‘My horse’s broke loose ’n gone 
on home. I’ll have to walk.’? Broke loose, nothin’! Was 
‘standin’ there all the time but we couldn’t see him. "T'was 
just before four o’clock ’n people began goin’ after their 
youngsters at school. Got lost ’n went around in circles. 


68 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Run into each other in pastures ’n off the road. Some 
children was froze tryin’ to get to shelter. We didn’t have 
no children to go after . . . had buried our little girl afore 
that. Name was Emmy. Beats all... remember how 
Ma said to me when the blizzard got so bad, “Well, Emmy’s 
safe, anyway.’ Always remember her lookin’ out the window 
into the solid, peltin’, tearin’ snow ’n sayin’ that in a kind-a 
pleased way, ‘Well, Emmy’s safe anyway.’” As though 
ashamed of his bit of emotion, he started up bluffly, “Well, 
it kept her up, wind fairly boilin’ the snow, blowin’ fifty 
miles an hour. The ’mometer thirty and more below. Lasted 
three days and blamed if another one didn’t start soon’s it 
died down. When it was over sun come out as pretty as a 
picture . . . the sky smilin’ as innocent as a lamb, as 
though a hundred folks hadn’t froze, and more stock than 
you could count.” 

As the old man stood there on the porch in the afterglow 
of the sun, telling the simple tale of the weather which 
had been both friend and enemy to him, Warner felt an 
admiration for him. The big head with its shaggy graying 
locks, the swinging arms that had held scythes and plow 
handles, that had planted and husked, seemed suddenly to 
belong to the patriarch of a people. He appeared for the 
moment to Warner as the victor of a vanquished race, as 
| the conqueror of a new world . . . an aged John the Baptist 
who had prepared the way in the wilderness for a new 
civilization. 

Warner went on into the house to speak to Aunt Biny 
who sat in the big chintz-covered chair by the window, pale, 
a little shaken yet. 

“We mustn’t stay longer,” Miss Rilla was saying. “We'll 
tire her too much just now.” 

“Come out again, then,” Nancy said, “Sunday .. . to 
supper, both of you. Will that be all right, Aunt Biny?” 


NANCY COMES TO A DECISION 69 


¢@ 


“T’d like it.” i 

“T don’t suppose I can,” Miss Rilla’s eyes watered at the 
invitation. “It’s my turn to have charge of the table next 
Sunday, but I'll send Mr. Field.” 

On Thursday morning Warner drew a circle around the 
Sunday date of the bank desk calendar. All day at his 
desk he saw it shining like a beacon light across the monot- 
ony of the week. 

Nancy slipped back easily into helping with the house- 
hold tasks. And they are legion in every farmhouse. 
Chickens, canning, baking, cleaning, churning, mending, 
soap-making. It seemed that Aunt Biny finished one task 
only to begin another. 

“How can you be so satisfied with it, Aunt Biny?” 
Nancy was helping in the kitchen on Saturday morning. 
“The monotony of it would drive me to drown myself in 
Tinkling Creek.” 

“Tt’s my home and my work,” Aunt Biny said simply. 
‘And there’s always been a satisfaction to me to know a 
thing was well done ...a nice sweet pound of butter, 
a box of flaky white soap, a flock of plump chickens .. . 
you feel as though you had done your little bit well.” 

“Believe me, it doesn’t sound enticing to me.” 

“Probably not.” Aunt Biny was finding that she must be 
very patient with this new Nancy. “And I don’t say that 


any other woman is called on to do my same kind of work. 


But I do say that no woman in the world will ever find 
happiness for herself if she doesn’t work, at something.” 

“But why work if it isn’t necessary?” 

“Because it’s part of the scheme of things.” Aunt Biny’s 
philosophy was simple but it would admit of no modifi- 
cation. 

And then Uncle Jud was bringing in split wood for the 
range, a last armful before leaving for Walt’s to help him 


70 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 
Md 


put in his winter wheat. And only a few minutes later 
some one came up the grassy path that led between Aunt 
Biny’s petunias. Nancy stopped by the window to see who 
it was. It proved to be Mr. Rineland, president of the First 
National Bank. How dapper and immaculate he looked, 
she was thinking. Whoever would believe that he had 
been a farm hand when he first came to Nebraska?’ And 
what did he want? Uncle Jud, of course, and he had just 
gone. 

But it was Nancy that Mr. Rineland had come to see. 
He was pleasant and cordial. “Well, Nancy, you’ve grown 
into a very lovely young woman.” 

“Surely you’ve not taken to flattery, Mr. Rineland?” 

“Truth is never flattery, they say.” 

“How are Mrs. Rineland and Alice?” 

“Both well, Alice is at home with us now. She finished. 
her music course at the University. She talked some of 
wanting to go to Boston for more study, but recently she 
has given up the idea.” Nancy would have laughed her 
mocking laugh if she had known why she had given it 
up. “You must come to see us, Nancy. Of all the little 
girls who used to play with Alice you were always my 
favorite.” : 

“Thank you! And you’ve a beautiful new home?” 
Nancy fancied it better not to commit herself about the 
visit. 

“Yes, Mama and Alice wanted it. As for me... my 
wants become fewer every year of my life. I’m almost down 
now to old Omar’s ‘book and loaf.’” He had a pleasant, 
understanding smile that Nancy had always liked. “But it 
was about you, Nancy, that I came to talk. [’m president 
of the school board and we find ourselves without a second- 
grade teacher in the Whittier School. I wondered if you 
wauld take the room?” 


NANCY COMES TO A DECISION 7) 


“1? Why .. . it’s funny you thought of me. It wouldn’t 


be possible . . . I’m sorry. I have to... .” Nancy was 
floundering a little. “I only intended to stay a few weeks, 
you know. . . .” Some perverse thing in her kept her from 


telling the reason. “And I never taught.” 

“Of course, I don’t know your plans. But I thought it 
would be nice for you. You could stay at the ‘Bee-House’ 
during the week. Miss Ann and Miss Rilla are still running 
it and they would take good care of you. You could come 
out home every Friday night. The old folks have missed 
you, Nancy. I was sorry you went away.” 

A quick flash of tears swept across Nancy’s brown eyes 
and she had to wink them back. 

“Tt seems to me you'd better consider it . . . the frail 
way your Aunt Biny is... and your Uncle Jud losing 
his grip ... I’ve noticed it a great deal the last few 
months.” 

“He does look different.” There was a quick little 
catch in her voice. “He seemed a giant for strength when I 
went away. He’s an old man now.” 

“Of course the teacher part, from our standpoint... 
we can get some one. It isn’t impossible, just a little hard 
as everything has opened up. But it was of you I was 
thinking . . . how it would keep you here with the old 
folks until May. And I’m not afraid of your ability. Miss 
Gunn is willing to help you all she can and is favorable to 
your coming.” 

“Oh, you meant stay the whole school year?” 

“Why, yes.” 

Nancy looked out of the old sitting-room window toward 
the gate with the horseshoe swinging on a chain. The cotton- 
wood leaves danced and shimmered in the morning. sun- 
shine. The road beyond ran like a brown ribbon garlanded 
with yellow bunches of plumed goldenrod. As she looked, 


72 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


the morning train from the West crossed the stretch of 
prairie, its smoke standing thickly back in the stillness of 
the blue. The next time she would go away on it, it would 
be to leave the old life behind forever. And after all, it 
would not be long. Eight months more of her own... 
nearly a year of freedom ... nearly a year to be the 
old Nancy Moore. One squanders Time lightly when one 
is young. 

Mr. Rineland named the salary. “That isn’t as much 
as we pay the others here but of course you’re without ex- 
perience.” 

“Oh, yes, there’s a salary.” But it had not been of the 
money she was thinking. To take up her life where she 
had left it... go on as though nothing had happened! 

“It tempts me! I have a half notion to do it.” Suddenly 
Nancy threw up her head. “TI believe I'll do it.” 

When Mr. Rineland had gone she went up to her old 
room. Nancy’s old writing desk was in the queer bay 
window addition and she sat down to it now. She wrote a 
letter to Mr. Farnsworth, who was a “little too fat and a 
little too old to be the hero.” In point of fact she wrote 
several but none of them pleased her. The last one, which 
had consumed a half dozen pages, she read and tore up. 
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” she said aloud, 
and wrote a briefer, more definite epistle. 

And so that evening at dinner in the “Bee-House,” Miss | 
Gunn was feeling more cheerful. “Well, I hope my troubles _| 
are temporarily suspended,” she said brightly. “We've a 
teacher for the second grade and that means a new boarder 
for the “Bee-House.’ I’m sure I don’t know what-she’ll do. 
She’s had plenty of schooling but not definite training. She 
was bright enough when she went to school to me . . . too 
bright, in fact, for she kept thinking up mischievous things 
to do. Ill have to help her, I suppose. You never can 


NANCY COMES TO A DECISION #2 
tell how they'll turn out. Some are born teachers. Some 
achieve it through much training and some have it thrust 
upon them. Nancy has had hers thrust upon her. You 
remember her, Miss Rilla . . . Nancy Moore?” 

Miss Rilla’s eyes performed their moist duty. “Nancy 
Moore? So little Nancy Moore is going to teach school with 
you? She'll do well.” 

Miss Ann did not see it so optimistically. “She was a tom- 
boy,” she said curtly. 

“There’s nothing else any more.” Major Slack threw his 
statement into the ring. “They’re all tom-boys now.” 

“Here’s a good one.” Marty Spencer chuckled at his own 
forthcoming wit. But he did not get a chance to tell the 
story, for Dr. Pearson was wanting to know if the girl was 
pretty, and George Kendall was informing him that she was 
a pippin for looks.. At which Genevieve looked sharply at 
her liege lord. She didn’t get along any too well with him 
but she intended to see that no one else did. 

Essie Carlson, bringing in the creamed peas, flushed 
at the conversation and put Miss Gunn’s dish on the wrong 
side, so that the carbohydrates of the peas were very nearly 
side by side with the proteids of the toasted cheese. So 
Nancy Moore was going to stay in Maple City! Then 
Essie’s little dream of Walt Thomas would vanish. into the 
place from whence it had come. Oh, well, nothing ever came 
her way. She might as well get used to expecting nothing 
and she would never be disappointed. 

“T wonder if she can sing?” Mary Mae Gates asked 
anxiously. $ 

“Let’s pray she can’t,” Miss Ann answered tartly. 

Only Ambrose Jones, the bore, and Warner Field were 
silent on the subject of the new teacher. The bore could 
think of nothing to say. And Warner Field thought of 


too much. 


72 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL 


ought to go to the Rinelands’. He had not been 

there all week and probably they had noticed it. 

So in the late afternoon, on his way to supper at the Moore 
farm, he turned his car into the sloping asphalt drive. 

Mr. Rineland met him at the door. “It’s you, Warner . . . 

come in. I’m glad you came. I want you always to feel free 

to drop in. Your father was my friend . . . I want his 

boy to feel at home here.” He was cordial and hospitable. 

Warner felt his sincerity. “I’m all alone. Alice and Mama 

are out in the car. They’ve gone to see a little girl out in 


(): Sunday afternoon Warner told himself that he 


the country ... Nancy Moore. She isn’t really a little 


girl, of course, but after all it seems only a few years ago 


that she used to come sometimes to play with Alice. She’s | 


just come home now and she’s going to stay and teach in 
the schools. I talked with her about it yesterday. And I 


told Mama and Alice they must go out and see her. Of all 


the little girls who used to play with Alice I fancied her 
most.” 
Mr. Rineland had a different manner in his home than 


in the bank. There he was all business, everything rotated | 
about the affairs of the Old First National. He was not — 


exactly stern, but at least silent and slightly austere. Here 


he was pleasant, talkative. Warner had come to think of | 


him as two men—the banker and the man at home. To 


74 \ : 


| 
| 
: 
| 


THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL 15 


his surprise he had found him a deep reader. Just now he 
felt a vague relief that Mrs. Rineland and Alice were not 
there. 

Mr. Rineland took Warner into a small room lined with 
books. It contained a library table, two big chairs, a man- 
sized desk. “It’s the only room that’s my own, Warner. 
When we built, I told Mama and Alice I was like Eugene 
Field when he said all he wanted was ‘an orange and a few 
kind words.’ All I wanted in the whole house was a corner 
for my books and the desk with some old keepsakes in. 
Alice wanted it for some kind of a little den but I said, 
“No, as long as you’ve got a papa, you’ve got to let him 
have a corner of his own.’” He was having Warner sit 
down; was childishly pleased to have him there. 

Warner picked up a small leather copy of Macbeth 
from the table. “I see you’re reading one of the new six 
sellers.” 

“Well, sir, I’ve been reading. the plays all over. There’s 
so little time for these things in the grind, and yet I like 
to think of them up there waiting for me.” He motioned 
toward the cases. “I have a sense of pleasure in thinking 
that Mr. Pickwick and Becky Sharp and a dozen other 
old friends are up there ready to come at my bidding.” 

They talked a little of some of the modern things, agree- 
ing comfortably at times, arguing mildly at others, ex- 
pressing themselves freely. “Warner,” the older man 
summed it up, “you can’t please a lot of us with a grue- 
some episode in life or a salacious experience. I’m tired 
of a lot of the stuff. It’s neither helpful nor entertaining. 
I’ve seen some raw things in my life and I’ve had some 
deep griefs. My first wife died when my little boy was 
eight . . . a great grief to me! It left me completely 
wrapped up in my boy. You don’t remember, maybe, but 
when he was twenty they brought him home to me from 


76 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


college . . . killed in a train wreck on the way home. 
All the hopes I had held for him! . . . Deep, deep grief!” 
He waited a moment and went on, “No, if you’ve lived 
life deeply . . . touched bottom as it were . . . it takes 
away any inclination to sit and wade through pages of 
sex stuff or even wearily follow somebody’s ponderous 
mental reactions. They call it all real life. At least if it’s 
a sordid thing they say it’s real life. If it’s decent, it’s 
bunk. Are indecency and slime all that constitute real life? 
Here’s Maple City . . . nobody is rich as riches are 
counted now, and yet everybody is rich as compared with 
the old pioneer days. Nobody is highly successful as the 
world counts it. There’s nothing here out of the ordinary. 
Yet, there’s drama here. There’s deep grief here . . . the 
quiet kind of grief that’ doesn’t rant openly nor accept its 
trouble stoically either one, but goes on taking up its daily 
life as cheerfully as it can. There’s service here. There’s” 
great joy here. There’s deep love here. Most of the mar- 
riages are built on high hopes and old Doc Minnish will 
tell you that there are more children welcomed than those 
that are not.” 

Warner enjoyed him. He asked a question or two to lead 
him on. } 

““A great wrath rises in me when I read the stuff from 
onlookers telling their opinions of my mid-west from the 
housetops. It makes me angry all through.” He spoke 
with genuine feeling. “And yet it ought not, I suppose,” 
he added parenthetically, “for the highest type of tolerance 
is that which is tolerant of intolerance. There was one of 
those articles in an old Review that I picked up the other 
day. It had that old time-worn theme: the grasping and | 
the sordidness of the middle west, the country without ideals, | 
the country destitute of artistry, the stolid old stigma that 
it existed without any sense of the finer things of life.” | 


SB a ey 


¢, 


THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL ue 


He fussed around on the big table until he found and 
handed it to Warner. .Warner read the ironical unsigned 
article through, but it was not new to him. He had written 
it. Moreover he had been sincere when he had done so, 
as honest in his convictions as he had been scathing in his 
criticism. He had written it with the complacent knowledge 
that he knew the mid-west. 

“Poor fool,” Mr. Rineland went on, “to see it that way. 
j don’t suppose there’s anything that touches me more than 
a denunciation like that. A hurt to my family couldn’t 
sink deeper than those things about my mid-west. For it 
is my mid-west, Warner. I helped to make it. I came here 
a stripling boy. I had no money then to put into the 
development of it. But I put in what was more tome... 
my youth and my energy and my love. I curried Judge 
Baldwin’s horses when he was spoken of as a ‘rising young 
lawyer.’ I worked here and there and everywhere to get a 
start . . . farm hand, husking jobs, one summer with a 
gang putting through the first railroad in this county. And, 
all the time I was working, I had the feeling that I wasn’t 
doing it just for myself . . . that I was putting into the 
new country all the youthful energy I could muster. I[’ve 
raised my head from laying ties and looked across the 
prairie to imagine mighty trains sweeping across it. And 
I’ve lived to see all that and more accomplished. So every- 
thing that strikes at it hurts me. It is a part of me. It is 
myself. We all feel that way, the old settlers around here 
who planted the trees and turned the first sod. It’s our 
mid-west and she’s like our mother. You wouldn’t, of 
course, expect that writer . ..” he motioned toward the 
article, “to admire our old mother. That’s the way she 
looks to the critic . . . old and wrinkled and bent. But 
we know what she has meant to us . . . our prairie 


mother.” 


2g THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Warner sat unspeaking. He could see that Mr. Rineland 
was deeply touched. He was saying things that no doubt 
seldom crossed his lips. “And here’s another.” He reached 
for a magazine. “ ‘How can a poet come out of Kansas?’ 
We’re not Kansas but we’re close enough to know that we 
are slapped on the wrist too. Answer it, Field. Lord, if 
I could handle a pencil like you! The thoughts tear 
around in me but if I’d sit down to corral them, they'd 
be off. ‘How cana poet come out of Kansas?’ Well, how 
could Howells and Mark Twain and Grant and Garfield 
come out of the little towns? How could Lincoln come 
out of Springfield? And how could any good come out of 
Nazareth, for that matter?” 

It touched Warner, the deep feeling which the little, 
dapper,.elderly man had been showing. He remembered 
his father speaking in the same way . . . expressing a sort 
of brooding love for Omaha and for the prairie and the 
prairie towns. He left, half reluctantly, with a feeling of 
having looked upon something very intimate if not sacred. 

Aske stepped out of the formal entrance, Mrs. Rineland 
and A®ice got out of the sedan and came up to the steps. 
Mrs. Rineland was as slim and willowy as Alice. When 
their backs were turned no one could pick mother from 
daughter. But in her face Mrs. Rineland looked very 
old. All the manipulating and face lifting and massaging 
could not bring a line of youth to her. She had been a ~ 
widow in her late thirties when she married Mr. Rineland. 
In all these years she had fought Time like a tiger. But 
for a decade Time had been using his own claws. With 
her beadlike eyes and a birdlike curve to her nose, she gave 
one the impression of a hawk . . . something watching 
covertly. She usually overdressed, a thing of which no 
one could accuse Alice, whose taste was perfect. This — 
afternoon the mother had on too much of everything, in- — 


THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL 79 


cluding rouge, powder and jewelry. Warner felt a vague 
dislike for her, of which his genuine liking for Alice and 
her father made him ashamed. 

“Come back in,” Alice put out a soft white hand, “and 
have some lunch.” 

“Thank you . . . you're always kind. But I’ve an 
engagement for lunch.” 

Little green points penciled themselves in Alice’s gray- 
blue eyes so that a faint touch of jade shadowed them. 
But she was poised. “For dinner to-morrow night, then?” 

“Why, yes, I could, thank you.” 

Warner drove directly to the Moores’. When he turned 
in behind the cottonwoods there was no one in sight. But 
Nancy met him at the door of the shabby old farmhouse 
with mock awe. “Alice and her mother have been to call 
on me,” she announced immediately. She clasped her hands 
dramatically and rolled her merry eyes. “We were sweeter 
than honey in the honeycomb to each other. Lovely, gra- 
cious things dripped out of our lips. . . .” She pirouetted 
about on an agile toe and kissed her finger tips to the air. 
Then she added mournfully, “And froze in long icy « alac- 
tites.” And her suppressed laughter bubbled forth in- 
fectiously. 

“Nancy! Nancy!” Aunt Biny reprimanded gently. 

Uncle Jud scolded her outright. “You ought to be 
ashamed of yourself. You ought not to talk that way... 
a great big girl like you. Making fun . . . nice. rich 
folks to take the trouble to come out here. You ought to 
be paddled.” | 
_ Nancy laughed at him. “Uncle Jud has threatened to 
paddle me ever since I was two,” she told Warner, “and 
he has never touched me yet.” 

“I will yet, young lady. You go to talking about folks 
that way and no tellin’ what [ll do.” 


i 


80 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“Pa! Pa!” Aunt Biny remonstrated. She was afraid 
that Warner would not understand Pa’s sputtering, which 
was as common to her as the chirping of the English 
sparrows. 

Warner found that Walt and Mattie were invited to 
supper, too. They came in a little while, Mattie, huge, 
warm, voluble, carrying her bulk along in that light-footed 
way which was a marvel to Warner. Walt, clean and 
quiet and brown as a hazelnut, effaced himself. He sel- 
dom looked directly at Nancy, but when he did Warner 
could see ‘that his heart was in his doglike eyes. _ 

They all sat on the porch in the green painted rockers 
until Aunt Biny and Nancy told them to come in. The 
dining-room end of the kitchen was the same clean plain 
place, with its yellow painted walls and its mopped floor 
with rag rugs on it. The dishes were the same, brightly 
decorated, a little heavy. But the girl had done something 
to the meal. It might have been the way the table was 
set or the great mass of purple and lavender asters banked 
in the center. And the girl herself! Warner, watching 
her pour tea, noticed again what grace there was in every 
movement. She was gay and talkative and unembarrassed 
at Uncle Jud’s clumsiness. She chided Aunt Biny for drink. 
ing too much tea. “You'll have tea in your veins instead 
of blood, Aunt Biny.” She drew Walt into the conversation 
when he was too long silent, with that gift of the natural- 
born hostess who makes congenial parties from guests with | 
little in common. , 

After lunch they all talked again out on the porch, Uncle | 
Jud on his favorite topic . . . pioneer days. “When we) 
got ready to build the first house after livin’ in the sod one,” 
he pointed to the two-roomed cabin in which Warner had) 
stayed, “we had to haul the lumber from down Nehawka_ 


way. They had the first sawmill there. Mr, Isaac Pollard 


$$ 


4 


THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL 81 


run it. We’d come across yonder. . . .” He pointed again 


with a huge stubby forefinger. “Wa’nt no roads, just take 
a bee-line across the prairie. Used to take us as long to 
get that load o’ lumber from down there as it takes now to 
drive across the state in an auto. Had its advantages though 

. goin’ slow did. Drive like the devil now . . . don’t 
see much of nothin’ on the way but trees and telephone 
poles slippin’ by. Went so slow then . . . could see wild 
flowers and take notice 0’ coveys o’ prairie chickens and 
quail and the way the white clouds slipped acrost the sky. 
Folks have had to pay the price o’ livin’ close to roadside 
things when they traded in the oxen and horses for gaso- 
line.” He dwelt on the subject, revealing that same brood- 
ing love for the country that Mr. Rineland in his more 
cultured way had disclosed to Warner earlier in Bs after- 
noon. 

And then the old man and Walt were nea the corn 
crop. “It’s going to be just opposite that of the wheat,” 
Walt predicted. “The whole corn belt will have a bumper 
crop. It’s going to be bigger even than our first estimate.” 

“I’ve noticed that’s always the way,” the old man philoso- 
phized. “Of late years we get a good corn crop and the 
wheat’s low, and vicy versy. I been down through my 
“aie field yesterday and it’s ana to be ’way over last 
year.” > 
_ “Mr. Rineland is advising carrying stock through to grass. 
Now that the corn is going to be available, they’ll not have 
to go this fall at a sacrifice.” Lately Warner had found 
himself unconsciously beginning to take an interest in the 
business. And if he had learned one thing more than 
another it was that a small-town bank is a farmers’ bank, 
that the country banking business is not only related to 
farming, it is the farming business. There was a little more 
conversation relative to the situation and then Walt said 


82 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


he must be getting back to the chores. So he and Mattie 
left, Mattie walking sideways down the steps lightly, buoy- 
antly, like the inflated balloon of which she always re- 
minded Warner. 

When they had gone Nancy turned to Warner. “Let’s 
walk . . .” she invited frankly. “Up the road to the end 
of the Denning hill where we can see over the country.” 

They went down through the grassy path with the lav- 
ender petunias bordering it and out through the gate with 
the clanking horseshoe on its chain. The road was gray 
and dusty from much Sunday travel. As they walked at 
the side they scattered dust from the shepherd’s-purse and 
rag-weed. | 
_ “Stop here a minute,” the girl commanded. “Look back 

through the cottonwoods that line the road. Isn’t that as 
lovely as anything abroad?” 

“You’ve seen Europe?” 

“Some of it . . . but nothing that I’ve liked any better 
than this. I grew up under the cottonwoods and I love 
them. They’re the happiest, merriest trees in the world. 
When everything else is still and doleful and pessimistic, 
they dance and laugh and twinkle. I think sometimes we 
don’t appreciate the things we’re used to . . . don’t see 
our commonest things as they really are.” 

For the fraction of a moment Warner’s mind flashed to 
that little marked volume in the old cupboard: ; 

“That which I see not teach Thou me.” 

But he would not have been human if his mind had not 
been more upon the girl than upon her philosophy. “Tell 
me about yourself,” he demanded. “What you’ve been 
doing since you lived here before.” | 

She darted a swift look up at him. “There’s little to tell. 
I lived with Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny until I was eighteen 
and then I went away. I’ve been in college since, spending 


i 


THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL 83 


my vacations with friends. And now that I’ve marched 
up the hill, why, here I am all marched down again to the 
place where I started. About the teaching. . . . I don’t 
know how it will turn out. Sometimes a person does 
idiotic things. I know I’ve done a lot of them. . . .” 
She stopped abruptly. “But I didn’t bring you out here 
to discuss me. I brought you out to talk about you.” She 
dropped her light bantering tone and a sincerity crept into 
her voice. “I haven’t, up to this moment, been exactly 
honest with you. It would be much more fair if I should 
tell you that I know all about you. At least,” she added 
lightly again, “I know who you are and where you came 
from and what you used to do and that’s a lot more than 
most folks in this community know.” 

He knew it would come some day. And this was the 
day. And because he was taken off his guard he said 
evasively, “You’re a bit uncanny. Do you by any chance 
operate a clairvoyant studio somewhere?” 

“Oh, not that bad,” she laughed. “I just happen to 
know some people who know you. Which in turn makes 
me know that if you’re Warner Field out here, it’s a deep- 
dyed, villainous alias, for you’re really Jeffrey Warner 
Field of the Review and other publications. I think 
I’ve read everything you ever wrote but your private letters.” 

He made light of the discovery. He was not, of course, 
in hiding. That would have been ridiculous. But he had 
felt a sensitiveness about falling into such a slump over 
his writing. He had taken his work seriously, had cherished 
some ideals concerning it, and because he had failed in it he » 
carried a vague soreness, a heartsickness, about with him 
‘and wanted little said about it. 

“And why . . .” the girl was asking, “do J find Jeffrey 
Warner Field of the Review-and-other-publications in a 
small bank in the middle west?” 


¢ 


REAR, 


_ 84 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“A bank is a perfectly good place to be,” he returned 
lightly. ‘There are even people so benighted as to con- 
sider the banker the big man of the town. I’m not the 
banker, but did you ever hear of a bank president that 
hadn’t at some time in his early career oiled the adding- 
machine and taken the monthly mouse out of its trap? At 
sixty I’ll be president of the institution and have a gray- 
lined limousine and a crabbed disposition and no waist 


line.” 


Quite suddenly she visioned his jesting words as a pos- 


sibility. And equally as suddenly the connection with Alice 
flashed through her mind . . . Alice, who that afternoon 
had referred to him frequently in her soft, clinging voice. 
Nancy grinned to herself. So that was it, was it? | 

“And who are the friends that we possess in common?” 
Warner was asking. 

“I’m going to ask you not to go into that just nove 
I'll tell you some day but just now I prefer not to.” If 


she was to be free to live her old life out here this year 


she wanted to feel so in every way. 

As Warner was more interested in the girl herself thal 
in any vague mutual acquaintance, he dropped it quite 
definitely. 

They were at the top of the long ascent of the Denning 


hill. So gradual was the slope that they scarcely realized 
the height to which they had climbed and the extent of the 


panorama that was now spread out before them. | 
“It’s the highest point in the county. “There lies sweet 
Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.’” Nancy turned to 
him, “Now . . . isn’t it lovely? What could be more so?” 
West of them, Maple City lay almost concealed in its 
mass of trees. Only a few roofs and the church spires 


showed above the interlacing of elms and maples and 


cottonwoods . . . a huge boutonniére on the breast of the 


| 
4 


THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL 35. 


prairie. To the east and south two other towns nestled in 
their green foliage. All about them the long, rolling hills 
lay like waves of the sea molded into solidity. There was 
the vivid green of alfalfa, the yellow of wheat stubble, the 
tawny brown of corn, the black of fall plowing and a half 
dozen shades in the pastures. From the northeast, Tinkling 
Creek wound through a dip in the hills across the lowest 
part of the country, easily traced by the fringe of willow 
and cottonwood and wild plum along its course. 

“ve been gone four years and I’ve never been quite 
able to forget it,” Nancy said after a moment. “It seems 
to be born in the blood . . . the love of the prairie country. 
The mountains hem me in. I don’t like them. They’re 
grand and awe-inspiring but I have mental asthma when 
I’m chucked down among them. The sea fascinates me, 
but I’m afraid of it. But this . . .” she threw out her 
hand to take in the landscape in its soft September haze, 
“there’s nothing like it anywhere. Its very odors are 
different . . . the loam and the soil . . . and the orchards. 
Why, a breath of wind from off an alfalfa field in blos- 
som nearly anesthetizes me. If I could write like you can, 
wouldn’t I get after the elusive something that’s in the 
atmosphere and catch it and imprison it in black and white 
for people who are away from it to read and hold and 
enjoy for themselves?” 

Three times he had heard it in the same day . . . the 
beauty of the prairie-mother. And he who was prairie-born 
had fled from her. 

“Of course there will be rough winds over it,” she went 
on, “tearing the very dirt from the fields and there will be 
frightful blizzards and deluging rains, but it seems to me 
that between these times it’s like a jewel burnished to its 
Breat beauty by the very ferocity and roughness of these 
2lements.” 


86 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


She turned to him and threw out her hands in a little 
characteristic gesture. “Not that I’ve been true to it by 
any means! Here’s a confession. All my life I listened 
to Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny tell about their pioneer days 
and I used to be bored to distraction. I’ve always been 
ashamed of coming. from a farm in the mid-west, ashamed 
of knowing anything about corn and cattle, wheat and hogs 
and alfalfa. I used to laugh and half apologize when I’d 
tell the new eastern girls where I was from. Isn’t that 
small and snobbish and cowardly? And I’m promising 
myself that I’ll never do it again. Oh, why haven’t we 
the common decency to stand up for our own?” she asked 
suddenly. “Why can’t we be honest and say we like the 
prairie and the cottonwoods and the low rolling hills? 
Why can’t we be loyal enough to say that our mid-west 
people are developing some of the arts? What makes us 
ape and imitate and follow ‘after everybody else when we 
might be evolving something of our own? What made 
Alice Rineland and her mother stick an Italian house out 
here on the prairie when we’ve a wide-porched, hospitable 
kind of architecture of our own? We haven’t any of us 
the vision and courage of the old pioneers themselves. 
Aunt Biny was talking to me last night about their coming 
on from the East . . . and it was really a wonderful thing, 
wasn’t it . . . women like Aunt Biny, delicate and gentle 
and refined, coming here in wagons, and men like Uncle 
Jud . . . courageous and energetic and strong? Of course 
there was the riff-raff, but she says that most of the people 
who came into this section of Nebraska were niet spirited 
and brave.” 

Nancy turned to the west and flung her hand out toward 
the sun slipping over the edge of the world. “Think of it! 
Right here where we stand! No roads, just wild prairie 
grass blowing in the wind. bea Creek over there with 


THE PRAIRIE MAKES ITS APPEAL 87 


a few cottonwoods and wild plums along its banks. The 
sky like a blue bowl turned over to meet the green bowl 
all around the rim of the prairie. Just a wagon here on 
the hill where we are . . . with a lone man and woman and 
a few tools and household goods. No one to aid them 
Dut themselves. Just their hands to do it all . . . to dig 
and plow and plant and harvest. Two pygmy people 
to conquer the brown earth and wrest a living from it and 
make a home!” 

Warner caught the spirit of the picture. “You and I 
wouldn’t do it, though,” he said definitely. ‘“We’re too 
smug and sophisticated. But how they must have loved 
adventure!” 

_ “And how they must have loved each other,” Nancy 
returned. 

_ “Well, one is about as passé as the other,” Warner added 
dryly, “courage like that and love like that.” 

They made no further comments. For a few moments 
they stood together looking at the country as it lay stretched 
in the lush mellow warmth of the late summer with that 
vague suggestion of fall in the air. Warner was human 
enough to be conscious of the girl’s loveliness, but his mind 
was on the things she had been saying. He had not been 
impervious to the beauty about him nor the achievements 
of the pioneers. .Through his father, he had been steeped 
in the traditions of that section of the country. But the 
very commonness of the subject had been too apparent to 
take much of his interest. Now as the girl talked in her 
enthusiasm, a bit of the vision of the early days and a trace 
of wonder over that which had been accomplished were 
revived if not actually born in him. 

_ The two walked back to the farm where the old folks sat 
Yeading on either side of the red-covered drop-leaf table. 
_ Warner took his leave. When he drove past the Rine- 


iv 


Ur 
Mm | 7 


88 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


lands’, Alice, who had been watching all the passing cars 
from the little upper balcony, went back into the house. 
That night Warner did not go to sleep readily. The 
seed of suggestion which the girl had thrown down all 
unaware of the trial through which he had passed, was 
germinating. He could not throw off the consciousness 
that there had been a romance of the prairie. It was his 
last waking thought. When he dropped into sleep the idea 
did not relax its hold upon him but stayed in his sub- 
conscious mind. All through his sleep a wagon crawled 
slowly over the prairie and another and another. There 
were brawny men in them like Uncle J ud, who shaded their 
eyes and looked hopefully to the west. There were soft- 
spoken women like Aunt Biny, who shaded their eyes 
and looked wistfully back to the east. From one of the 
wagons a girl slipped out and stood on the brow of the 
hill . . . a long, low, rolling hill. . . and laughed 
gayly as she pointed toward a creek where a few cotton- 
woods and wild plums grew. She had warm brown hair 
and merry brown eyes. The curve of her throat and chin 
was a lovely thing to see. She was like a candle in the 
dusk . . . a flame in the dark! He hurried to join her, 
fearful that she might go on without him. As he neared 
the top of the hill she threw him a laughing, tender look 
over her shoulder and the flame of her vanished into the 
west and mingled with the sunset. He wakened and lay 
wrapped in the vividness of the dream, so shadowy and 
elusive and yet so real that he was shaken with the memory) 
of it. | 


CHAPTER IX 
ALICE RINELAND 
(): Monday morning Warner went to the bank still 


conscious of the thing. A certain exhilaration was 

upon him. He could not put his finger upon the 
cause, but all during the walk down Main Street there per- 
sisted the feeling that something new had come into his 
life, something of great interest and great charm. 

At the bank, Marty Spencer followed him in with, “And 
so we have with us to-day the ever-popular Mr. Field! . . .” 

Mr. Rineland came in, dapper, neat, every gray hair in 
place. The other boys took their places. The school bell 
rang. A groceryman came in to deposit his Saturday night 
receipts. An old man came in to get some change. It was 
his little grandson’s birthday and he was going to give 
him a dollar. The day’s grind had begun. 

Down at the Whittier School, Nancy Moore in a leaf. 
green linen dress was going up the same walk she had trod 
when she was a little girl and the steps that were worn 
with the tramp of a thousand feet. The building was old. 
She could see a few straggling cracks in the bricks like 

“the faint tracings of woodbine. She put her hand on the 
latch. Even that was familiar with its huge iron thumb-piece. 

Inside, the old hall seemed welcoming her home. The long 
stairway that turned in three directions up to the four higher 

Brades was just as she had pictured it. For a few moments: 
she stood and let the recollection of the years sweep her like 


a tidal wave. She could-see herself climbing those stairs, 
mm: - 89 


(ea 
5 


90 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE. x 
her brown hair in a braid, and wearing the ill-fitting dress 
of blue serge with a red-and-blue plaid yoke into which 
Aunt Biny had put so many delicate stitches with such 
clumsy results. How sensitive she had been about those 
clothes, her heart aching for things like Alice Rineland’s! 
That had been only nine years ago. And the places she 
had been since and the clothes she had worn! The little 
girl who was before her now in fancy seemed for a few 
moments to have no more connection with herself than a 
strange child. A sudden swift flash of tears swept her eyes 
as she involuntarily looked up to the vision of the clumsily 
dressed girl from the country with her books and her dinner 
basket mounting the stairs. But almost immediately she 
was brought back to the present, for Gus Carlson was com- 
ing forward to greet her as though he were the host. The 
average small-town schoolhouse janitor is not a mere tender 
of fires and a sweeper of dirt. He is a sort of Lord High 
Chancellor of the building. And Miss Gunn was stepping 
out from her office, too, and meeting her. Other teachers 
came up . . . the grade teachers . . . and the kinder- 
gartner, a Miss Hays, with that sprightly, cheerful, affected 
tone that a few (and only a few, thank heaven) kinder- 
garten teachers think they have to assume. They seemed 
pleasant, all of them. Miss Gunn, dignified, calm and 
slow-moving, asked Nancy to come into her office for a 
short talk. } 

“T’ll help you all I can, Miss: Moore,” she said. “Pm 
going to call you that right from the start. You may be 
‘Nancy’ to me at the ‘Bee-House’ but here you're “Miss 
Moore.’ It would take away from your dignity a little, 
you know, for the children to hear.” 

Miss Gunn’s talk hit the target as it were. “You're handi- 
capped at the start without the definite training that the 
other teachers possess. But I remember you well enough 


wD Arb af 
Bae) Me ahoat 
ae 


ALICE RINELAND 91 


to know how quick you are at everything. I had rather 
trust you to pick up what you’ll need to know than some 
girls with training. There are stupid people in every walk 
of life and whatever you may lack, you’re not stupid, Nancy 
. . . Miss Moore.” Nancy grinned, but Miss Gunn, humor- 
less and earnest, did not. “Every night after school for a 
time I'll assist you with your work. I think you will get 
along well. Remember this: children are not empty buckets 
that you have to fill with something. You can’t pour 
knowledge into them. Initiative is everything. They must 
do what they’re told . . . yes, not with just blind obedience 
but with an intelligent obedience that understands why they 
do it. Get every brain to thinking for itself and every hand 
to doing for itself and you won’t be driving the children 
at all. They will all be living, as Kipling says, ‘Each for 
_ the joy of the working.’”’ It summed up quite neatly many 
a three-year normal-training course. 

There were a few more specific directions for the day 
and then Nancy went into the room where she herself had 
gone to school. How tiny the desks seemed! They had 
been quite huge in her day. The windows looked practically 
the same and the woodwork. The walls above and below 
the blackboards, white in her time, were now a pale apple 
green. Miss Addison had been her teacher, a large soft- 
spoken woman. “Nancy wondered what had become of her 
since she married some elderly man and moved away. That 
was the way with most of them, to teach for a time and 
‘then marry. All excepting women like Miss Gunn, with 
/ ho emotiona! side, all intellectual. ; 

Standing just inside the bare, clean room, incidents long 
dormant in her mind came back like yellowed pictures torn 
from the leaves of an old scrap book: Uncle Jud bringing 
her into town every morning behind the old fat team; the 
day she was coming down with the measles and, feeling 


92 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


sick, was still too timid to tell Miss Addison so; Aunt Biny 
coming in to attend a special program, wearing a funny 
old-fashioned hat and cape, her crutch making hard sounds 
on the schoolroom floor; the Christmas tree and the daz- 
zling thing it had seemed to her. Now that she was really 
going to teach she would have a Christmas tree for the 
children . . . a big one to bring the dazzle to other eyes. 
How queer life was! Realizing that the thought was not 
original and would in no way assist her in the morning’s 
work she took off her hat, gave her hair a pat into place 
and took an inventory of the material in the cupboard. 

Miss Gunn came in, went over the books with her and 
gave her an outline for the day. “To-night we'll go over 
the work together so that your view of the entire fall pro- 
gram will be comprehensive.” How patient and unruffled 
Miss Gunn was! | 

The children began coming in. Roxy Swanson arrived 
first, blowing in gustily with a sort of “Well, here I am” 
air. Jakie Cohn came with the nose-marks of his race upon 
him. Johnny Bornheimer came, clean and patched and 
darned., Two of Gus Carlson’s big flock came. mara 
pupils were enrolled. 

The room was rather in chaos, the first teacher beatid 
barely made a good start. The previous week had been a 
succession of girls from high school. Miss Gunn had not 


been able to give them all the help she would have liked. 


The last bell rang. Nancy faced the battery of sixty-one 
eyes, Jakie Cohn, because of too great curiosity over a 
firecracker, being the possessor of a glass eye which he 
would remove for the edification and entertainment of any 
ene who paid him a cent. 

To Warner Field that new interest in life persisted all 
morning. His mind seemed to be diwided quite definitely 
into two compartments. In one he did his mechanical work 

. : 


| 


ALICE RINELAND vega 


correctly. In the other, shadowy, vague, but definitely ex- 
isting, those prairie people moved on their journey, drew to- 
gether, confided their plans, drifted apart. He had the 
sensation that they were going about their work on the 
prairie, building their sod houses, breaking the wild ground, 
setting out trees, stepping lightly, speaking softly, that they 
might not disturb him. He had a queer whimsical notion 
that he would like to have them wait for him. “Wait until 
I can join you,” he seemed to be thinking. “Wait until my 
task is finished and I’ll go on with you.” 

At noon, as he left the bank, they were waiting for him. 
They came trooping to him when he started home. On his, 
way up Main Street they accompanied him, strong virile — 


_men and wholesome women. And all the time a slim girl, 


laughing at hardships, taking gayly whatever the toilsome 


_ journey brought forth, danced like a will-o’-the-wisp ahead 


of the others and beckoned to him to come and see the 
beauty that lay on the rim of the prairie. She had on a 
coarse blue calico dress, but now that he had arrived at the 
“Bee-House” he decided that she looked very much like the 
girl who was coming into the dining room in cool leaf-green 
linen with a boyish white collar turned back from her merry 


face. For Nancy Moore looked as lovely as a narcissus, 


even though the day was hot and sultry. 

The new place laid for her was up at the far end of the 
table, but across from Warner, where he could see her. She 
had stopped near his chair and was speaking to Essie 
Carlson, the waitress. “Why, Essie, how are you? I didn’t 
know you helped Miss Ann.” 

Essie colored to the roots of her moist light hair. “How 
are you, Miss Moore?” 

Nancy took both of the Bure hands. “Essie Carlson, 
don’t you dare ‘Miss Moore’ me.” She turned to Warner in 


_ explanation. “We were ‘all in the same high-school class 


% 


sa + 


94, THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


. . . Walt and Essie and Alice Rineland and I. There 
are quite a lot of us here now.” She had turned back to the 
girl. “We must have a class reunion.” 

“Oh, I don’t think we’d better try,” Essie gave a little 
short laugh. “Alice Rineland don’t even know me these 
days.” 

There was something about the lunch that was gayer than 
usual. An atmosphere of fun pervaded it, a sense of exhilara- 
tion was upon every one. Nancy Moore seemed in some in- 
explicable way to be responsible for it. There was some- 
thing infectious about her approval of life. She and Major 
Slack immediately crossed swords verbally, the girl holding 
her own in a defiant little way that tickled every one im- 
mensely. It was as good as a vaudeville act. 

Nancy’s afternoon proved not to go as smoothly as the 
morning. It was extremely hot and a little of the novelty of 
appearing noble before the new teacher having worn off, 
the children became a restless, squirming, perspiring bunch. 
Roxy Swanson, as a self-appointed critic, took it upon 
herself to tell Nancy at short intervals in what particular 
way she taught school differently from the old teacher. 
Johnny Bornheimer cried softly at his desk and would not 
tell her why he cried. Herman Guggenmeier got on a 
stubborn streak and sat with his under lip hanging down. 
What under the sun did one do with a boy lke that, won- 


dered Nancy. Lessons she could manage. Seat work .. . 


she had a dozen nice ideas for it. But a boy who merely sat 
and did nothing with a lip hanging out like a chute from 
the back of a coal wagon . .. what did one do with a 
youngster like that? And quite suddenly Nancy, who had 
had dealings with many masculine creatures in her short 
life, with wonderful insight, decided that she would treat 
him just as she would treat a mature one . . . by ignoring 
him altogether. It had a most happy result, for finding that 


’ 
a) 
ne 
t's 
es 


* 


' 


ALICE RINELAND 95 


he created neither excitement nor even interest on the part 
of Miss Moore, he hauled up the coal chute, as it were, 
and became an active, progressive citizen. 

As three-thirty arrived, Roxy Swanson with her deep 
knowledge of “Who’s who” in the schoolroom and “What’s 
what” arose and informed Nancy with considerable éclat 
that just before they went home every afternoon they sang 
the bally-fiction. As Nancy had already perceived, after a 
brief day’s association with her, that Roxy was a juvenile 
Mrs. Malaprop she decided with nimbleness that she meant 
benediction. So they stood by their seats and bowed their 
heads, Jewish and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Funda- 
mentalist and Modernist, and sang in at least four keys but 
with a great seriousness: 


_“Now the day is ended, night is drawing nigh... . 
Guide us in Thy mercy . . . hear Thy children’s cry ... .” 


For some unaccountable reason it touched Nancy. It was 
always to touch her a little, no matter how trying the day 
had heen, that final gathering together before some vague 
unknown Throne and casting of their little burdens upon it. 
Well, she would be a good teacher to them. For the first 
time, she sensed a responsibility in the thing she had done. 
Hitherto she had-thought only of herself and the half-lark 
she was indulging in, given heed only to her own view- 
point. Why, there was another side to it! Swiftly she 
visioned the children’s standpoint, saw, not what freedom 
the year would give her, but what she might do for the 
children. What would they get out of life in the years to 
come because of her association with them? Quite suddenly, 
Nancy, who was not very orthodox, cast herself upon the 
same childish unknown Throne and made a little promise. 


“Til do my best for them if You'll help me.” And humble 


i : 
Ua 
fe le 
57 


96 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


as it was, it must have reached the ears of the Head Teacher, 
for Nancy was to do a great deal for these little folks of 
the poorest ward in Maple City. 

Miss Gunn, as patient as though it were only eight in the 
morning, went over the work with her after school. When 
they had finished, Nancy, with a little of that divine im- 
pulse still upon her which had come while the children 
were chanting the prayer, said, “Miss Gunn, I’ve something 
I want to tell you. It isn’t very important maybe, and | 
don’t know that I can just put it into words, but I took 
this position with little more than an impulse of pleasing 
myself . . . I’m pretty selfish when everything’s simmered 
down . . . but I want you to know that this afternoon when 
the children were leaving, something happened to me.” 
She laughed a little sheepishly. “For all at once I felt a 
great inclination to do something for them . . . every child 
in here ... . give every one the very best that is inme.. . 
make them interested in everything fine and big in 
life: . . .” She broke off. “That’s pretty hazy and in. 
_ definite, isn’t it? I guess you'll not quite understand just 
what I mean.” 

Miss Gunn stood looking at the great patches of bare 
ground surrounding the teeter-boards. For a moment she 
did not answer. Then she turned. She looked tired. Miss 
Gunn had taught many years. “When I was a young girl like 
you, Nancy,” she did not even remember the “Miss 
Moore.” . . . “I made a vow to carry the living flame of 
_ knowledge to boys and girls. I shall die some day after 
school has closed and they will lay me away. But something 
of mine can never die. There will be no more remembrance 
of me after a short time, but the thing I have done... 
the torches I have lighted from mine . . . do you see? .. . 
they will never go out with my own.” , 

Nenev was touched as she always was touched with a 


% 


; 


ALICE RINELAND 97 


beautiful thought. Why, what a good woman Miss Gunn 
was! She was humorless and she was a little boresome at 
times. But she was fine and big and good. 

In her new-found zeal, the second-grade teacher stayed 
until ten minutes of six. She planned her work for Tuesday, 
put white ruffled curtains up to the bare windows, scrubbed 
two imitation cut-glass vases, wrote a memory verse on the 
blackboard and stenciled a border of goldenrod in the 
front of the room. 

With her hat on, she paused in the doorway and looked 
back. She was extremely tired from her unwonted tasks 
and experienced a sudden let-down of her enthusiasm. “Why 
_ did I ever decide to do it?” she asked herself. Oh, Nancy, 
why did you? 

Gus Carlson came to the door and noisily deposited a 
- mop, two brooms and a dustpan. She had a gay word for 
him so that he told Jen, his wife, that night, that Nancy 
Moore was going to be just as jolly and easy to get along 
with as when she was a little girl, not like that Miss Hays, 
who bossed him around like she was Mrs. Vanderastor 
and he was the butler. 

As Nancy walked down the front steps, worn by the soles 
of a thousand shoes, she carried with her two readers, a 
music book, “Outlines and Suggestions For Teachers,” and 
a load of responsibility like Bunyan’s Pilgrim. As she 
turned up the street, a smart shining sedan drove past her. 
Ahead of her a little way it drew up to the curb. When she 
came up she saw that Alice Rineland was at the wheel 
waiting for her. Alice had on a clinging gown of blue with 
a girdle of silver. Her small hat was a Frenchy affair of 
blue cornflowers. She looked elaborately polished, cool and 
poised, and Nancy, from much reaching of high windows 
and much erasing of smeary blackboards, was not exactly 
a model of well-grooming. 


98 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“A lift, Nancy? Ill take you around or up or over or 
down.” 

“To the ‘Bee-House,’ James . . . providing always you 
can ride with as rumpled a person as I.” 

Alice gave her an appraising glance. “And you always 
like to look so pretty, too, don’t you, Nancy?” she said 
sympathetically. 

Nancy shot her a swift glance. Did these things that Alice 
was always perpetrating upon her intentionally have stings, 
or was she merely built on tactless lines? Was she cruel or 
merely blundering? But Alice was looking sweet and com- 
posed, and she was saying, “So you’re going to teach down 
here in the Whittier?” 

“Yes, I’m back where I started.” 


“However can you? I’d be so helpless and hopeless too, 


I suppose.” 

“Oh, it will be no dinner dance,” Nancy admitted, “but 
pleasant enough I dare say.” 

“IT don’t know what I’d do if I had to get out and 
work.” ) 

Nancy gasped at the inference. For the flash of a moment 
she had a heathenish desire to tell the smug, self-satisfied 
girl at her side the news of her unannounced betrothal. It 
would be worth a good deal to see the surprised look that 
would come into the cool complacent face at Mr. Farns- 
worth’s name. No, on the whole it would be more fun to 
keep it to herself . . . to laugh in her sleeve all year at 
_ Alice’s condescension, to allow all of Alice’s snobbish ways 

and smug statements to accumulate like a pile of dried leaves 
~ and then blow them aw.y in the spring with one little 
nonchalant announcement. Nancy nearly laughed aloud at 
the humor.of it . . . the picture of herself humbly swallow- 
ing Alice’s condescension all year and then springing her 
news just before she left Maple City. It tickled her so much 


ALICE RINELAND 99 


that she grinned impishly at a telephone pole. “Pity the 
poor working goil,” she remarked with assumed pathos. 

Alice sighed, “I guess I was just cut out to be a home 
girl.” 

“You do the part lovely, Alice,” was Nancy’s dry com- 
ment. | 
_As they drew up to the “Bee-House,” Alice darted a 
glance from the corners of her soft gray-blue eyes. “You’re 
having to do without your Mr. Field to-night. I’m waiting 
to take him home to dinner.” 

It irritated Nancy. But then Alice Rineland had always 
possessed the faculty of rubbing her the wrong way. Tired 
_from her unusual labors she said tartly: “Oh, save your 
sympathy, Alice. The Lord will let us worry through the 
meal somehow.” | 

“Well, Nancy,” she said to herself, as she went up the 
“Bee-House” walk, “you could hardly say of the short 
drive that a good time was had by all.” As she mounted 
the steps, Ambrose Jones, twisting his hat in embarrassment, 
bowing and scraping and smiling foolishly, arose from a 
porch seat and plastered himself against the wall to let her 
pass by, so that Nancy was smiling again on her way up 
the wide winding stairs. On the landing she met Warner 
Field coming down. She waved her hand toward the big 
front door. “Yonder your carriage waits, mlord... 
pumpkin, rats and the fairy godmother.” She was laughing 
at him. As he looked back at her up the stairway, she was 
looking over the banister, still laughing gayly, her brown 
eyes twinkling mischievously. She had that vague, far-off, 
elusive manner ... like Babbie! Babbie, who danced 
devilishly and wantonly through Caddam Wood! He wanted 
to turn around and go up after her, catch her and shake her 
and make her tell what she was laughing at. When he went 
down the front steps of the “Bee-House” one could not 


tO) THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


truthfully say that his under lip stuck out like a coal chute, 
but in a perfectly refined and mature way he felt like 
Herman Guggenmeier. 

In her room Nancy paused a moment to think. What was 
Alice doing across Tinkling Creek in the creamery ward, 
so much out of place in her shining car? Had Alice 
deliberately waited to see her come out and to bring her 
home so that she might know Warner Field was going to the 
Rinelands’ for dinner? Oh, well . . . she was capable of 
it. The Ethiopian hadn’t changed his skin, she imagined, 
in four years. Then she put the thought aside for Essie was 
tapping at the door. She had a special delivery letter 
from Mr. Farnsworth and a box of roses . . . a mass of 
silvery-rose Caroline Testouts with cherry-red hearts. Yes, 
she would always be well looked after, would always be 
deluged with things. “Love hasn’t much to do with things,” 
she heard Aunt Biny’s voice, patient, gentle. 

Nancy divided the roses. She put some in a jar for her 
room and took the rest down to the dining-room table. 

“And did you find it possible to instil anything in your 
young hopefuls’ heads, Miss Moore, may I awsk?” Marty 
Spencer greeted her with his surfacelike gayety. 

“A great many things, Mr. Spencer, most probably not 
found in the narrow confines of your knowledge,” Nancy 
retorted. “For instance a lesson on the grasshopper.” In 
exact imitation of Miss Hays’ high childish voice she gave 
forth: “The mother grasshopper does not have a pretty 
nest as the birds do. She puts the egg in a hole in the 
ground and leaves it there. The little egg lies all snug © 
and cozy all winter but when the warm days of spring 
come it begins to feel alive and out comes a funny little 
thing. He eats very much and grows very fast. And then — 
he does a funny thing. He crawls right out of his coat and — 
has a nice new one under it. Then wings begin to grow. — 


ALICE RINELAND 101 


Day by day he begins to look more like his father and 
mother. He is very happy and very hoppy. Day by day 
in every way he gets happier and hoppier.” | 

Everybody laughed for it was quite evident that Nancy 
was going to handle Mr. Martin Spencer as ably as she had 
handled Major Slack. 
_ Up in the Italian house on the hill Alice was playing for 
Warner, the lovely melody of Siegmund’s Love Song from 
Die Walkiire. She played beautifully. She looked deli- 
cately lovely under the soft rose light of the piano lamp. 

The last chord melted away. She dropped her hands 
in her lap. “A penny for your thoughts, Warner!” If 
Eve did not say it to Adam, at least Sheba’s queen was 
guilty of it. Alice’s voice was soft, caressing. 

Warner rose to leave. He gave her a light evasive answer. 
He had been wondering what Nancy Moore was laughing at 
on the stairs. 


CHAPTER X 
THE BEE-HOUSE 


he involuntarily glanced up to the third floor of 

the corner of the “Bee-House,” the tower corner 
that looked like a silo. A window screen swung outward 
and a dark head followed it. “Hst! I’m Bishop Hatto in 
the mouse-tower,” she called down to him. 

Warner, stopping on the front walk, observed that the 
porch was surprisingly free from its usual quota of boarders. 
“Come on down,” he called back, “it’s too nice an evening 
to be incarcerated at Bingen-on-the-Rhine.” 

So Nancy came down and the two sat on the edge of tie 
porch under the old porte-cochére which no one in town 
had ever had the temerity to pronounce. 

“How did the Columbuslike venture of teaching turn out 
on its first day?” 

Nancy laughed. “Well, it has all the Ringling and 
Barnum shows beaten for swift activity. There are thirty- 
one youngsters and we have thirty-two dispositions. They 
do the funniest things. Roxy Swanson can mispronounce 
more words than she has in her vocabulary. We had a story 
with a Russian Cossack in it and she said she wished I’d 
read more about the Russian Cow-stack. This afternoon I 
told Jakie Cohn to sit on the front seat for the present and 


at recess he told me he ‘set there a long time and never ~ 
299 . 


\ R [THEN Warner Field went home from the Rinelands’ 


git no present. 
It made Warner smile. Nancy liked to make him smile. ‘ 
102 


THE BEE-HOUSE 103 


She liked the way his mouth relaxed its sternness and drew 
up at the corners and the way his eyes lost their sober, 
depressed look and crinkled humorously. “I think I’m going 
to like teaching, though, and I love the “Bee-House.’ It’s 
the queerest thing to me to be living here, for I always 
thought this was the grandest house that it was possible for 
mankind to build. I used to drive past with Uncle Jud wher 
I was a litile girl. I’d be up on a load of shelled corn 
or maybe in the hayrack and the place had the most wonder. 
ful fascination for me. I used to feast my eyes on it as 
long as I could see it and wonder where in the world there 
was anything else so rich looking. I used to wish I could 
faint away out in front or fall off the lumber wagon and 
break some little thing like my neck and be carried in.” 

“And you were never in it until now?” 

“Oh, yes, I was, once. Miss Ann phoned Aunt Biny one 
eventful day to see if she could get a setting of eggs and 
Aunt Biny had me come in on a load of cobs with Uncle 
Jud and hold the basket in my lap so nothing would happen 
to them. I remember it turned cold and Aunt Biny pinned — 
a big brown shawl over my cloak. I went up to the front 
door with the shawl trailing along behind me like a court 
train. When I rang the bell old Mrs. Baldwin in her black 
silk and her cameo pin as big as a waffle iron came to the 
door. I guess she didn’t know about the eggs. Anyway she 
said, “What do you want?’ kind of crabbed. I had been 

. frightened stiff enough as it was just to go to the door and 
so. when she said, ‘What do you want?’ I said, in a little 
scared voice, ‘Nothing!’ ‘Well then, run away,’ she said. 
And I sure would have . . . I’d have run to San Francisco, 
eggs and all, if Miss Ann hadn’t jumped out ahead of her 
_ mother just then and ordered me fiercely to go round to the 

back door. She met me back there and told me snappishly 

to wipe my feet and come in. She set a chair for me just 


104, THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


inside the kitchen door, but Miss Rilla came out and asked 
me if I wouldn’t like to go into the library and see the 
stuffed birds. The glass chandeliers and the beveled mir- 
rors and the thick carpets looked like fairyland to me. 
When we were standing in front of the case of old stuffed 
owls and parrots, Miss Rilla suddenly put her arms around 
me and drew me up to her and kissed me and cried. I 
thought she was sorry for me because I didn’t live in a 
house like she did, but I know now, of course, that she 
would cry if she looked at an oyster.” Nancy grinned her 
boyish grin. 

“When did the o!d people die?” 

“The Judge, when I was a little girl. I can remember him, 
as pompous as a blowfish. He used to swing a wicked gold- 
headed cane when he walked along the streets. And to see 
him go downtown was like seeing a Cunard liner leave 
port. I think one son and one daughter died before I was 
born, but the old lady died just since I’ve been away. She 
was as proud as a peacock, too, with her cap and her lace 
collar and her smelling-salts. It must have galled her ter- 
ribly to have the girls keep boarders. Miss Ann and Miss 
Rilla used to handle her as if she were a piece of cloisonné. 
She had watersacks under her eyes and her head shook like 
this. . . .” Almost immediately, Nancy, in the moonlight, 
had shriveled up into an old lady with tremulous shaking 
head. 

Warner laughed aloud. Nancy had that same degree of 
satisfaction she alwe_,s felt in having created a little interest 
for him, temporarily broken up his graveness. 

And Nancy made Warner and all the others laugh again 
on the day that followed. After dinner she dropped down 
on the bench of the old grand piano which Judge Baldwin 
had shipped out from Chicago when Miss Ann and Miss 
Rilla were small. It was past its prime, scuffed and marred, 


THE BEE-HOUSE 105 


but holding up its head proudly. Like Miss Ann! Every one 
stopped in the faded grandeur of the parlor while the old 
Judge scowled down on the usurpers. Miss Gunn was there, 
a little fearful that she was taking too much time from 
her work. Major Slack, bombastic and decisive, was there. 
And Dr. Pearson and Helen Blakely, gravitating together, 
sat down on the built-in seat by the stairway. Marty Spencer, 
with his superficial gayety, was there and the Kendalls in 
a temporary state of congeniality not warranted to last for 
any length of time. Ambrose Jones, the bore, stood a little 
to one side to let the ladies pass by . .. watching ... 
watching ... his pale eyes alight with pleasure. 

“And so you sing?” Marys Mae Gates asked Nancy, her 
voice holding both awe and respect. 

“Like Galli-Curci,” the irrepressible Nancy announced. 
She jumped up. and went back to the dining room for one 
of the roses which she stuck over her ear and coming back 
to the piano she trilled, “Non ...non...non... 
non . non... in an exaggerated operatic manner. 

Maty, Mae Gates was visibly horrified. I: was as though 
one had been flippant before Euterpe. At the other boarders’ 
applause she curtsied and then said, “And also Schumann: 
Heink.” In some weird manner her slim boyish body seemed 
to swell into matronly proportions. She puffed her cheekg 
and the heavy notes of: 


“Morgens send’ ich dir die Veilchen, 


Die ich frih im Wald gefunden. . . .” 


rolled out. 

Essie, laughing, stopped in the doorway with the bread-. 
plates in her hand. Miss Rilla wiped her ever-moist eyes. 
“Tsn’t she happy and eka she said to Miss Ann in the 
dining room. 


106 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“Tsn’t she noisy and forward?” was that amiable lady’s 
retort. 

To Warner she seemed a fresh breeze blowing across the 
monotonous desert of the “Bee-House.” 

By the next night Nancy’s head, pedagogically speaking, 
was bloody but unbowed. “I thought teaching would be 
easy,” she confided to Warner after dinner on the seat 
by the stairway in the big hall. “I have more problems 
to decide than the umpire at a world’s series. And I wish 
I could remember all the funny things they say. I know 
Jakie Cohn asked me to-day what Hiawatha smelled. I 
couldn’t think what he meant and then I discovered that he 
had reference to Hiawatha’s Melody. He thought it was 
‘Hiawatha Smell a dee.’ It made me think of myself when 
J was a youngster. I thought the song ‘Jesus Loves Even 


Me,” was ‘Jesus Loves Eve ’n Me,’ that Adam’s wife and J- 


had a sort of monopoly on Jesus.” 

It made Warner laugh. From that time on Nancy found 
herself saving all the funny little happenings at school to 
tell him in order to see that humorous look that came into 
his sober eyes. They were fine eyes, clean and sincere 
looking. Something worried him and it worried Nancy to 
think he was worrying. It must have been something to do 
with his writing. Over and over she pondered on the fact 
that he was in a bank evidently doing nothing with his 


talent. She wished she could help him. But not being able © 


to help him she did the next best thing . .. she began 
amusing him. Quite often the two are synonymous. 


ee 


CHAPTER XI 
UNCLE JUD AND AUNT BINY 


community to own no auto. Whenever he took Aunt 

Biny to town he still hitched up a plodding team to a 
two-seated surrey. If he went alone he used a rattling 
buckboard. It irritated him, that constant tooting of horns 
at his left, and the drawing over to the right of the road 
to let his neighbors go by. But half in stubbornness, half 
because he felt shy about learning to drive one of the little 
“pesky things” as he called them, he refrained from invest- 
ing. Some of the neighbors put a great deal of money into 
their cars. Nick Denning, for instance, on the north, had a 
monstrous shining affair that would have done credit to a 
multi-millionaire. To be sure, they were something of an 
incongruous sight in it, Nick at the wheel, with his unshaven 
face and his wide straw hat, Mrs. Nick thin and tall and 
angular, with her hair screwed up in a high hard knob on 
top of her head, sitting stiffly in the fine upholstery of the 
back seat. 

Nick Denning was one of the “best-fixed” farmers in the 
country. Some day some one may be able to arise and tell 
the world the reason for the financial difference in the 
results of the farming of two men who live side by side, 
whose land seems of the same degree of fertility and upon 
which the same sun shines and the same rain falls. 

The Denning land joined Uncle Jud Moore’s on the north 
and east. Old Nick Denning had purchased his first eighty 
: . 107 


| ee JUD MOORE was the last farmer left in the 


108 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


from the railroad company for the same cash price which 
Uncle Jud had paid for his. By the time Old Nick died 
he left behind him double that amount of land together with 
other excess baggage which he did not need on his long 
journey. Young Nick, having caught his father’s falling 
mantle, as it were, proceeded to hold his own in poor years 
and make more money than any of his neighbors in good 
years. As a result the Dennings had the finest farm buildings 
on the road east of Maple City. The house was modern if 
not unduly artistic, possessing a private lighting plant, steam 
heat, and two bathtubs, although Nick, as a matter of fact, 
did not expose himself to the slippery perils of either one 
very often. 

Nick owned four hundred and eighty highly improved 
acres, all of the section excepting Uncle Jud’s farm, much 
stock, and had some money out at interest. Uncle Jud’s 
assets were one hundred and sixty acres with a smaller 
amount of stock and twenty-five hundred dollars in time 
certificates in the First National Bank. 

Nick Denning had worked early and late and ‘so had 
Uncle Jud. Mrs. Denning was not extravagant. Aunt Biny 
was less so if that were possible. Answer the problem! 
Something in the management had made the difference, 
some head work of Nick’s that Uncle Jud had not exercised. 
It is “X,” the unknown quantity, whose identity can never 
be named and after which no one can write a Q.E.D. 

On this Friday afternoon in September Uncle Jud had 
come in from putting in his winter wheat. 

“Tireder than a dog after a skunk hunt,” he complained 
to Aunt Biny. “What in tunkit makes me feel so lazy?” 
He dropped down in a kitchen chair, his long limbs stretched 
out to another one. | J 

Aunt Biny limped over to him and put an old Omaha 
daily under his feet on the painted chair. “Maybe you need | 


SS 


= 


UNCLE JUD AND AUNT BINY 109 


some medicine, Pa. Like’s not you’ve got some little ailment. 
Maybe you better see Doc Minnish.” 

“Lord, no!” Jud Moore had never had a doctor for him- 

self. Old Doc Minnish was one of his best friends but he 
had no notion of placing himself unqualifiedly in his 
hands. 
_ “Ain’t I got a bottle o’ medicine around some’eres? 
Bought one from a medicine man afier Seeger’s auction 
sale. Paid a dollar for it, too. Ain’t I got a lot o’ that 
left?” It was as though he was proud of his economy. 

Ma limped into the “buttery,” as she called her pantry, 
and laboriously climbing a chair and pulling her lame leg 
after her, went over the contents of the upper shelf. Lini- 
ment, a bag of dried catnip tea, sassafras, some outlandishly 
odorous asafetida . . . the bottle of patent medicine. She 
climbed painfully down and brought out the bottle. 

“T ain’t real sure you ought to take it without just knowing 

what’s the matter with you.” Aunt Biny believed in dis- 
playing a little caution. 
_ The old man read the elaborate and promising label. 
“Well, it’s a cinch it’s one of them things that ails me. 
I’m goin’ to take some. It can’t hardly miss it for it’s good 
for everything from boils to epilepsy.” He slapped his knee 
and roared his enormous laughter. “Ma, j’ever hear about 
the doctor that.didn’t know what ailed a patient ’n he 
decided to give him somethin’ to throw him into fits .. . 
and then he could cure the fits?” 

Yes, Ma had heard it. She had, in point of fact, heard it 
at stated intervals for more than forty years. But she did 
not let on that she had. Of such is the kingdom of happy 
marriages. 

After many preparatory rites in the way of getting water 
ready and measuring the medicine in two different sized 
spoons, Uncle Jud courageously took a dose of the con- 


* 


it 


\ a ® 
ORY by 
x * 


110 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


coction and was compelled to finish the ceremony by eating 


~-a crust of bread to take the taste out of his mouth, which 


he described vividly to. Aunt Biny as an apparent mixture of 


parsnips, rotten eggs and wintergreen, 

He had scarcely recovered from his unusual adventure 
into the realm of pharmaceutics when some one drove into 
the lane road. It was Major Slack, carrying his rotundity 
like a pouter pigeon. 

““What in tunkit’s a real estate man tacklin’ me for?” Old 
Jud flung out crossly as he went out of the kitchen to, meet 
the Major. “Keepin’ me here gassin’. Got to go into town 
after Nancy.” 

The Major, florid, a little pompous, threw his shaliedee 
into the ring: “What kind of a price will you make on your 
farm, Mr. Moore?” 


Uncle Jud spat adroitly at a chip. He felt anger rising 


like a tidal wave from somewhere within his huge interior. 
The feeling of rancor was as strong within him as the 
taste of quinine which lingered over his salivary glands. 
“Why didn’t Nick Denning come to see me himself?” 
The Major tapped a pair of gloves across a plump hand. 
“This has nothing to do with Mr. Denning or any one 
else. I’d merely like to have a price on it so I can list it. 


You're getting on in years and | have an idea you will want 


to be retiring soon and coming into town.” 

Uncle Jud straightened himself. “No, sir! No, sir! Ive 
got a dozen years of farming left in me yet. I’m healthy as 
an ox. I’m stronger than most of the young fry.” He held 
out enormous arms. “You can come back again, Slack, ’n 
ask me the price of this farm after I’ve put ten crops in that 
there barn over there.” 

The Major, knowing the cold man meant every word, 
smoothed him down a little and left. 


Uncle Jud went back to the house. For nearly a half — ) 


| 


| 


UNCLE JUD AND AUNT BINY ll) 


century he had turned in every pleasure and in every trouble 
to one person ... Aunt Biny, his wayside shrine. Old 
Jud Moore never talked directly to God. He would have 
said he did not have to. He had Aunt Biny. 

Miraculously his anger left him on the way to the 
house. His statement concerning his strength was mere 
braggadocio. No one knew it better than he. But he did 
not want to give up. He did not want to sell the old place 
to Nick Denning. That was all poppycock, he told him- 
self . . . what the real estate man had said. It was Nick 
who wanted it. Casting envious eyes at the old place every 
time he came along the road! It would complete the sec- 
tion for him. But he couldn’t have it. By gad, he couldn’t 
have it! His anger surged up again as he went into the 
kitchen. Aunt Biny looked up from her mending basket. 

“Why, Pa, you worse?” 

“No,” he snapped, “I’m too mad to be sick.” 

“Why, what happened?” There was no anxiety in Aunt 
Biny’s voice, nor did she stop mending. Pa was a little boy 
in many ways, she would have said, and only needed 
handling as such to calm him. 

“That fat drum major Slack was out here as swelled up 
as a poisoned pup. He wanted I should put a price on the 
place.” 

“Well,” Aunt.Biny’s voice was gentle, unruffled, “that’s 
a natural thing for him to do. That’s his business.” 

“I ain’t goin’ to sell the place,’ he growled. “They 
might’s well know that on the start.” 

“Well . . . nobody’s going to make you. Now you just 
cool off and go hitch up and get Nancy.” 

The old man left, muttering a little, like the small boy 
Aunt Biny knew him to be. In the doorway he stopped. “I 
got to take the lumber wagon ’n get some new two-by-fours 
for the chicken-house.” 


112 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“Pa ... you ain’t going to get Nancy in the lumber 
wagon?” 

“You've rode on lumber more’n once. What’s good 
enough for you’s good enough for her,” he scolded. 

Aunt Biny sighed. It was his anger that was making him 
obstinate. He didn’t have to get those two-by-fours to-day. 
He would drive up in front of the “Bee-House” for Nancy, 
and young people were so sensitive. It might make her 
angry too. She and Pa had had more than one scene in 
their lives. Nancy was happy and jolly, but she was tempery. 

But it turned out that Nancy was not angry. And by the 
time the lumber wagon drew up creakingly in front of 
the “Bee-House” Uncle Jud was good-natured too. ““What’n 
tunkit did I bring this lumber wagon for?” he said apolo- 
getically to Nancy, as though he had just discovered he was 
riding in one. 

Nancy laughed, high bubbling laughter. “Now, Uncle 
Jud, look me in the eyes. Didn’t you say to yourself, when 
you hitched up, that if a lumber wagon was good enough 
for you it was good enough for me?” — 

The old man grinned. “Well, now’t you mention it, seems 
like I did notice at the time that I was hitchin’ onto the 
wagon.” 

They started rumbling down the paved street through 
the business part of town. Marty Spencer and Warner 
were leaving the bank as the wagon passed. Nancy waved to 
them gayly from her perilously wobbling perch on the 
noisy vehicle. Warner found himself resenting it. He 
wished she would not do such a conspicuous thing on 
Main Street. Alice Rineland would not. ... He caught 
himself up. Surely it was no business of his that Nancy 
Moore chose to go home that way. He had not been ap- 
pointed her guardian yet, he told himself with fine sarcasm, 

On Sunday afternoon, with no previous engagement to do 


a 
A ff 


UNCLE JUD AND AUNT BINY 113 


so he drove out to the farm to bring her back to town. 
The old man unconsciously made Warner’s unannounced 
arrival easier, “Glad you come, Field. Saves me hitchin’ up 
the surrey. Gettin’ lazy. Tireder’n a old plow horse 
to-day.” 

Nancy accepted his appearance cheerfully. If it was a 
trial to her, she concealed it admirably. On the way into 
town she conceived the happy notion of driving into the 
cemetery. So they went in under the arched iron gateway, 
left the car on one of the graveled drives and walked among 
the old graves. There were flowering bushes by some of 
the graves and thistles by others. Nancy showed Warner 
the grave of Uncle Jud’s and Aunt Biny’s little girl who 
had slept there for forty summers. There was a group of 
graves on one side of the hill that Nancy pointed out. 

“It’s nice, isn’t it, to think they’re all here together? 
All these folks in this section of the yard came into 
Nebraska in their wagons about the same time,” she told 
him. “They were a sort of clan... the Rays and the 
Sterns and the Dennings. . . . Uncle Jud’s and Aunt Biny’s 
old friends and neighbors. They broke the prairie and 
planted the trees and lived near each other. And now they 
are all neighbors yet in their little houses on the sloping 
side of the hill. Isn’t life queer?” 

One old tombstone said: “He died an old man and 
full . . .” and when they had laughed about it and pulled 
the weeds away they found the sentence finished, “of 
years.” 

Walking there in the old graveyard that afternoon with 
Nancy, a gentle Nancy, who was neither mischievous nor 
aloof and yet strangely alluring, Warner felt a peculiar 
sense of contentment. It even seemed to suggest an end to 
restlessness. 


CHAPTER XII 
PATRONS 


of the children. She went first to the Bornheimers’. 

The house was tiny with a frail little sloping porch 
in front, a cardboard sort of house which the wind could 
have crumpled. Nancy, in front of the cheap thin door, had 
a feeling that she must not knock on it too hard. A young. 
half-frightened looking woman came to the door. Life had 
buffeted Mrs. Bornheimer about a good deal. Her young 
husband had been killed. There was some effort to get 
compensation from the creamery company but it went wry. 
She did not have a case they told her. It had been his own 
fault.. She had been a newcomer to Maple City just before 
her husband’s death, so Nancy had not known her. Nancy 
introduced herself and was invited in. 

The house was clean. But there was a pinched look about 
everything. Nothing was plentiful. The curtains were 
skimpy, the rug too small. Nancy wondered if the children 
had enough food. 

Johnny was pleased to see his teacher come in. His brown 
eyes lighted up as one turns on the light in bulbs. Freddy 
was sitting in a big chair with a quilt made from irregular 
patch pieces behind him. He was pale from his long illness. 
Nancy was a little embarrassed. With her own exuberant 
health she did not know for a minute just how to fit in. 
Above all things she wanted to show only friendliness, with 
no condescension in her attitude. She talked to Freddy and 
to Mrs. Bornheimer about him. 

114 


QO N Monday night Nancy started in to call at the homes 


PATRONS 115 


“He’s getting better fast now, is he?” 

“Yes ... he’s going to do just fine now, ain’t you, 
Freddy?” The mother’s voice had the assumption of cheer- 
fulness. Nancy felt vaguely that she did not feel as opti- 
mistic as she talked. 

“Doctor Pearson’s taken such good care of him. He 
couldn’t have acted more interested in a boy of his own. 
He’s been so kind about his pay, too. He’s having me make 
some operating gowns to help pay.” She went over to the 
sewing machine and brought back whe of the white baglike 
garments to show the teacher. 

Nancy started to say, “Would you be glad to get some 
more sewing?” and changed it to, “Would you be able to 
take on a little more sewing . . . making some work shirts 
for my uncle?” Nancy gave the order on the spur of the 
moment. Aunt Biny had made every work shirt that Uncle 
Jud had ever worn, but that was no reason she always 
should. 

Yes, indeed she would do so. She had been hemming 
a table cloth for Mrs. Rineland. It was a_ beautiful 
thing . . . something they bought in Omaha last summer. 
She went to a cheap looking sideboard, opened the bottom 
drawer and took out the cloth to show Nancy. 

“I wish I knew what to charge her. Mrs. Rineland says 
it's not worth much, just straight work like that, but I find 
it takes a lot of time, such tiny stitches all over and over. 
So I hardly know what to do.” 

Nancy felt a hot resentment toward the small-souled 
woman. “I’d certainly charge all you felt you ought to 
get, Mrs. Bornheimer.” 

The woman fondled the cloth. “I’ve learned to love 
it . . . working with it this way. It’s beautiful, isn’t it... 
the faint satiny wild-roses all spilled over it that way? 
It’s for Miss Alice’s hope chest I gathered from their con- 


116 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


versation. Folks say she’ll marry that nice looking man 
in the bank .. . that Mr. Field.” 

“Is that so?” Nancy bent over the cloth to examine it. 
She found herself resenting that statement a little too. 

“Johnny’s doing all right in school?” the mother was 
asking. 

“Yes. indeed,” Nancy flashed her quick smile toward the 
boy, “he’s one of my right-hand men . . . sits in the front 
seat and helps me a lot . . . takes care of the supplemen- 
tary readers and cleans the erasers.” And Johnny, suc- 
cumbing no less to that smile than a few other masculine 
creatures had done, made high resolve to do something 
heroic for Miss Moore, carry her out of the burning school- 
house maybe, or earn a quarter to buy peanuts for her. 

When Nancy left, the young mother followed her out on 
the rickety porch. The boards gave forth little creaky _ 
sounds under their combined weight. “You go back, Johnny, 
and stay with brother,” she ordered the teacher’s gallant 
escort. “I wanted to tell you,” she lowered her voice, “Mrs. 
Rineland tells me I ought to put the children in the state 
home for dependents. She says I’m not doing by them as 
well as they’d be taken care of there. But I won’t do it. 
You don’t think there’s any way they could be taken with. 
out my consent, is there . . . if I work hard and take good 
care of them?” 

“No, of course not.” 

“Well, I couldn’t stand it. Ive stood a lot and I can 
stand a lot more... but not that ... not having them | 
taken away. Mrs. Rinclond said they’d have better food than : 
I can get and that there’s lots of good things about the 
Home. But they wouldn’t have their mother’s love and it | 
seems to me that love is just as important as things.” 

Nancy looked up half startled. When had she heard 
something like that before? But the mother went on, “She 


PATRONS 117 


said all this before Johnny, too ... it was one day last 
week and it worried him so .. . he cried about it a lot,” 

That was what he had been crying about at school, Nancy 
thought, when he would not tell her why he cried. Why, 
how necessary it was for a teacher to know about a child’s 
home. How it would interpret for her his school life! And 
how much the little family needed help. She wanted to 
leave some money but she was not sure she ought to offer 
it. There was a pride about the young woman, an inde- 
pendence which kept her from making the gift. Instead she 
promised the sewing with the frantic prayer that Aunt 
Biny could be wheedled into giving up the annual job. 

When she left she was thinking, “This is my family. 
Johnny is mine. I must do something for him more than 
merely assign his lessons. A real teacher is a real friend 
to her pupils.” 

From the Bornheimers’ she went down by the creamery 
to the Carlsons’, the janitor’s home. The house was larger 
than the other and more substantial, a wing-and-upright 
affair set back behind a picket fence. The yard was as neat 
as a pin, all the leaves raked up and the tree trunks white- 
washed. When Nancy knocked, Gus himself came to the . 
door, a pipe in his hand. Smoking was prohibited in the 
school buildings and he was embarrassed when he saw it was 
one of the teachers, so he hastily slipped the offending ad- 
junct into the sewing-machine drawer at the risk of a con- 
flagration. The house was as tidy as the yard. It did not 
have that usual jumbled look where many children live. 
Tt was nearly supper time now and there was an odor of 
cooking meat and cabbage. 

“Tl call Jen, Miss Moore. Set down, set down.” Gus 
surreptitiously retrieved his pipe which had burned only 
a few ravelings. 

Nancy sat down in a rocker in the room into which she 


118 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


had just stepped. It opened directly into the kitchen and 
she could see the table set for supper. A clothes basket was 
resting on two chairs near the stove and she knew the baby 
was in it for she could plainly hear little queer sucking 
sounds coming from it. The baby was only two weeks old 
and Jen Carlson was already thinking of starting back to 
the “Bee-House” for cleaning work. 

In a hurried sweep of the sitting room Nancy’s eye 
caught glimpses of the art work that the children had done 
at school ... goldenrod, a green tree on a hillside,.a map 
of the state. Suddenly she felt that she knew what school 
meant to these children, why the teachers of Whittier 
complained about them arriving before the first bell rang. 
And then Mrs. Carlson came in and little Emil and May 
and Lily were not far behind. Mrs. Carlson did not know 
just what attitude to take with Nancy, the familiarity of old 
times or deference to the children’s school-teacher. She’ 
wiped her hands. 

“I declare I don’t know w’at to call you . . . Miss 
Moore or Nancy.” 

“Well, I know what to call you, Ma Carlson,” Nancy 
laughed. “I remember how you mothered me when Essie 
and I came home from a school picnic and I was caught 
here in a storm and had to stay all night.” 

“And I was dat ashamed I had to put you in de same 
bed wid Essie and Elsa.” | 

“Anyway, I never slept better.” - 

“I’m dat rumpled up. You must excuse me. I been 
chasin’ de Swansons’ chickens. Their old Rhode Island 
Reds pester my late tomatoes, eat de insides right out and 
leave de skins holler. Our own Plymouth Rocks never act 
dat way I’m tellin’ you... .” 

“How many children are there now, Mrs. Carlson, with 


the new baby?” a 
Bs 


PATRONS 119 


“Eight. Ain’t dat a pile? And de new one’s de nicest one 
yet.” She displayed him with many cluckings and much 
pride. As he reminded Nancy of nothing so much as a new 
little Duroc Jersey pig, it required both courage and finesse 
to say the approved thing. 

When she had been there a little while another member 
of.the family arrived: Elsa, younger than Essie and much 
better looking, home from the store where she was clerking. 
She was dressed simply, in excellent taste. In the way she 
had of getting under other people’s skins, Nancy sensed that 
Elsa was ashamed of the house. If she could have spoken 
she would have said: “Oh, Nancy, this house hurts me so 
with its red and green rug and its oak rockers.” Nancy, 
remembering the sensitive way she had once felt about 
Aunt Biny’s rooms, was sorry for her. She felt a keen pity 
for the feelings of thé young girl and an equally keen 
pity for the hard-working, child-bearing mother. 

“How do you like your job, Elsa?” 

“Like arsenic, Nancy.” 

“You do? Why do you stay in it?” 

Elsa shrugged her shoulder. “Why do I eat?” 

“What would you like to do?” 

“Design costumes.” 

“You would?” 

“Morning, noon and night.” She jumped up and went 
into a bedroom, coming out again with a bunch of little 
watercolors. 

Nancy saw at a glance that they were artistic and original. 
“Would you like to have me help you get into a costuming 
‘shop where you can work up?” 

“I'd be dead and gone to Heaven!” 

“IT think I can . . . next May when I leave here. We'll 
talk it ‘over later.” . 

_ There was only time to make one more call. She went 


120 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


in to the Swansons’, next door. Like the Bornheimers they, 
too, had arrived since Nancy went away. 

The yard was as untidy looking as the Carlsons’ had been 
neat. A little of everything littered it, a tin can or two, 
a wagon wheel and some scraps of gingham. A broken 
ladder rested dejectedly against the front porch and a rusty 
corn-popper stood upright near the door. 

Mrs. Swanson came to the door. She looked as rusty as 
the corn-popper, as dejected as the broken ladder. She was 
not exactly fat but she ran all together in a blurred figure- 
less sort of way. 

“Oh, it’s the teacher, come in.” She was unenthusiastic 
about it. 

Inside there was the effect of a huge egg-beater having 
whipped up the contents of the house. 

“Have a chair,” the hostess invited, spiritlessly. 

Nancy would have had one if any had been available, 
but wishing neither to sit upon a roll of dirty clothes, 
a pile of child’s playing blocks nor a Maltese cat, she stood, 
hesitating. 

Mrs. Swanson, eventually seeing the situation, languidly 
poked the cat off, the cat being one unit and not requiring 
the exertion needed to pick up the component parts of the 
dirty clothes or blocks. | 

Nancy, with the mental resolve to brush, clean and air 
her dress as soon as she got home, sat down. 
_ The children came in, Roxy at the head of the cavalcade 

with the same air of leadership she possessed in school. 
Looking at the alert child as with new eyes, Nancy felt that 
it was inconceivable that she belonged to the phlegmatic, 
slovenly woman apparently dragging so aimlessly through 
life. 

Mr. Swanson followed the children in. He was small and 
wiry looking and somewhat greasy. His stolid helpmate 


PATRONS 121 


affected an offhand and laconic introduction by saying, 
“Miss Moore, this is Jim.” 

Nancy had an uncontrollable desire to laugh. It was all 
she could do to keep from saying, “Hello there, Jim.” 
Already she was picturing to herself the joy of imper- 
sonating this interview to Warner Field. She could hardly 
wait to tell him about it and see the corners of his mouth 
relax and then curve up. 

The family was almost a replica of the Carlson family. 
It was funny the way there was child for child in age. 

Mrs. Swanson began nasally on her troubles. “Well, 
I suppose you seen Jen Carlson out chasin’ my Rhode Island 
Reds. Such mean neighbors! They make everything out so 
big . . . such a fuss over nothings. They act like Plymouth 
Rocks know better how to behave . . . always talkin’ like 
they learned them manners. I guess a Plymouth Rock’s 
as ornery as a Rhode Island Red any day.” 

“Jim” agreed amiably, “That’s right ... what Myrt 
says. Gus and Jen set up nights tryin’ to think of some way 
to do us dirt.” 

Heavens! Was this what Roxy had for her environment? 
If she amounted to anything it would not be through guid- 
ance or advice. Nancy looked at the child with her pretty 
face, her keen eyes and her young maturity. Whatever did 
the future have in store for her? It made her feel like 
warning her, protecting her, putting into the year all she 
could that would be a foundation for her, laid as it were on 
the quicksands. 

Nancy made the call as short as she could consistently do. 
Immaculate and dainty, she had a feeling of pulling herself 
away from an atmosphere that was thick and sticky. 

She started home. The three calls were all she could 
make this time. “They are my people,” she thought again, 
She must keep in touch with the children. must know more 


; 
i 
. 


y¥ 


122 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


about their dreams and visions and desires. Whatever one 
did, one ought to have a love of humanity with it, a watch- 
fulness and care for the people about one. As she climbed 
the long slope of the hill toward Main Street she was think- 
ing of the good a person could do by the simple process of 
being kind to the people with whom he worked. The 
churches with their ponderous creeds and their eternal ques- 
tioning of beliefs . .. did they make the whole thing 
more weighty and complicated than it really was? After 
all, wasn’t it merely that kindness should leaven the daily 
life? When Aunt Biny put the little yeast cake into the 
flour and potato water to make her bread it permeated the 
whole pan, went into every portion of the mixture and be- 
came a part of it. Wasn’t that all there was to any 
religion . . . the whole thing that men made so ponderous 
and huge? If kindness just permeated your every act when 
you taught school or dug ditches or sold groceries or 
doctored a sick family . . . wasn’t that all there was to 
it? | 

She was nearly late for dinner. As she went up the 
steps of the “Bee-House,” Ambrose Jones, who had been 
sitting on a porch seat, rose and with elaborate bowing and 
scraping and smirking, plastered himself against the wall 
to let her pass in. “Good evening, Miss Moore.” His little 
short foolish bows nearly convulsed her. “Do you not think 
it will rain before night?” It was all she could do to hold 
herself in. | 

To Helen Blakely, hurrying down the stairs to the dining 
room, Nancy said, “Did you ever see such an old wooden | 
jumping-jack as that Ambrose Jones? Some day I am | 
going to lose my head and say right out, ‘Oh, no doubt, you | 
old fossil, and some day it may even snow.’ ” | 

She hurried upstairs, got into a rose-colored dress and | 
fastened a silver bandeau in her brown hair. She was as | 


PATRONS 123 


gay as her gown at the dinner table. Afterwards when the 
crowd lingered in the old reception hall with its inlaid 
floor and the faded grandeur of its rugs and draperies, she 
gave Warner Field a thrilling account of her “pastoral 
calls” as she called them. 

“And now to sum up the points I’ve made in the lecture,” 
she finished, “the three salient items are that the Born- 
heimers need money, the Carlsons need encouragement and 
the Swansons need baths.” 

And Warner laughed, his sober mouth and serious eyes 
breaking up into mirth, just as Nancy wanted them to. 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE DIARIES CAST THEIR SHADOW 


meal of the evening dinner. It was served at any 
time a boarder came down. Miss Ann specified a 
law that was like unto the Persian ...no one was to 
be served after eight-thirty. As every one but Genevieve 
Kendall had to be at work by that time it was no hardship. 
To be sure Nancy Moore, with one brown eye on the clock, 


| Byarige at the “Bee-House” was not the social 


sometimes breezed in as one coming under the ropes at the 


last moment. But on Tuesday morning almost every one was 
at the table. Major Slack was there in pleased and pom- 
pous contemplation of a stack of griddle cakes. Mary 
Mae Gates was there, brain-weary already at the thought of 
the long’ day before her in which she was to further the 
music of the spheres. George Kendall, cross from having 
played bridge so late, was in his place, but Genevieve was 
still upstairs, getting her beauty sleep. Miss Gunn was 
there, breakfasting slowly, eating so-many carbohydrates 


and so-many proteids, chewing so-many times on this bite — 


and so-many times on that. Helen Blakely was there, her 
thoughts serving two masters at one time, an outline for 
her English class and Dr. Pearson across the table.. Ambrose 
Jones darted his head foolishly around that he might not 
miss what any one was saying. But his gyrations were 
quite useless for no one was saying anything. At least not 


} 


until Nancy arrived gay and breathless in a brown dress and | 


a chic little hat over her brown hair. 
124. 


THE DIARIES CAST THEIR SHADOW 125 


By a mere chance of circumstance Nancy and Warner 
came into the long dining room at the same time. “Here 
come the Grave Digger and the Sassy One,” Marty Spencer 
remarked, sotto voce, to the others. 

Nancy heard him but she did not let on. The quiet around 
the table disappeared before her chatter. Every one warmed 
up. She had that faculty always. The moment she 
descended upon them, the ice crackled a little and then 
broke. She had spent the evening before writing some — 
invitations for a class reunion picnic out at the farm, she 
told them all. 

“They’re quite clever,” she assured them blithely; “by 
a stretch of imagination one could almost think that Marty 
Spencer might have written them.” 

Every one laughed at the turn of the table. Nancy passed 
the invitations around. They read: 


“Backward, turn backward, Oh Time, in your flight, 
Make me a Senior again just for to-night.” 


The verses ended quite touchingly with: 


“Rock me to sleep, mother, 
Rock me to sleep. 


_(Bring a rock with you).” 


Essie, plain and neat as usual, came in with Nancy’s 
toast. “A little billie-doo, Essie!” Nancy handed the girl 
her envelope. 

Essie looked at the invitation and her face lighted up, 
then it clouded. “I don’t suppose I can go,” she whispered, 
“at dinner time that wav.” 

“Oh, yes, you can, I’ll talk to Miss Ann about it.” 

Essie carried her invitation in her waist all day where 
it clung like a little memory come to life. 


Fee 


126 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


After the noon lunch she took it out and read it again 
in the kitchen. Then she started in on the long dishwashing 
job. Miss Rilla always helped with the breakfast dishes but 
Essie did the lunch ones all alone while Miss Rilla lay down 
for a while. Miss Ann did not lie down. She considered it 
a weakness. Nothing about Miss Ann ever relaxed, her 
body, her mind, her thoughts, her vigilance. 

The great mass of sticky dishes was piled around Bas 
now. They surrounded her whole life. She would never 
be able to climb over them into the outside world. As she 
cleaned and stacked them she was wondering why. it took 
so many. to feed a few people. Who was the lunkhead that 
had invented bread and butter plates? And why did one 
person have to use more than one spoon? They went into 
the same mouth, didn’t they? 


As she started washing the glasses from the big pan in” 


the sink, she could feel the little invitation against her 
breast. That was nice of Nancy to get up the reunion. 
But she couldn’t go. She scarcely had the nerve to ask Miss 
Ann to get off and would rather not ask at all than: be let 
off grudgingly. 

It made her fall to thinking about Nancy Moore. What 
she really wanted to do was to hate Nancy. But try as 
she would, she couldn’t even dislike a girl who was so nice 
to her. She had been sorry beyond words when she had 


heard that Nancy had come back to Maple City and then © 


to live at the “Bee-House,” for she had thought she was 
gone for good. And now Nancy was here and already she 
was liking her again, just as everybody liked her. As 
Walt Thomas liked her! Essie fell into a daydreaming 
which certain efficient specialists say is a form of dementia. 
Ah, then, how demented most of us are! 


She was on the silver now, washing away mechanically 


and summoning Walt Thomas into her mind in a way that 


| 
| 


>. ‘ 
4 q 
We 


THE DIARIES CAST THEIR SHADOW 127° 


made him seem almost real. It was the high-school class 
picnic four years before that pictured itself in her thoughts. 
The class had gone over to the woods beyond Postville and 
right after supper she had wandered off to pick some flowers 
and had turned back in the wrong direction. While she was 
trying to decide which way to go somebody had hallooed 
and it was Walt Thomas looking for her. 

“Well, Essie, what you trying to do . . . give us the slip 
and elope with somebody?” She could remember every 
word. He had taken her arm and helped her up the bluff. 
There had never been another moment like it in her life. 

And Walt loved Nancy. She had always known it. 
Every one in high schodl had. known it. And now that 
Nancy was back, he would be with her some more. Mr. 
Field was paying a lot of attention to Nancy too. He had 

limbered up since she had come, had sort of come to life. 
How pretty Nancy was! Why couldn’t everybody be like 
her? Her hands still in the steaming suds, Essie turned 
and looked across at herself in the kitchen glass. She had 
two eyes and hair and a mouth too, just as Nancy had. But 
what a difference! Her eyes ...how pale blue they 
looked . . . and Nancy’s were big and brown and full of 
something like bright lights that came and went. Her 
mouth . . . how straight and big it was... . and Nancy’s 
had a butterfly curve to it over pretty teeth. Her hair... 


taffy-colored and stringy . .. and Nancy’s was soft and 
brown and fluffy. How disgusting she looked in the glass 
with her face moist from the heat. Her hands .. . she 


pulled them up from the water. Red as flame and swollen. 
What made such a difference between two girls anyway? 
Besides her good looks Nancy had gone away to school and 
knew lots more now than she. High school had been the 
end for her. She had stayed home a year to do the work and 
then Miss Rilla had come. down to see if she would help for 


128 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


a week or two. That was three years ago and she had been 
here ever since. She was good for nothing but housework. 
Something told her there was nothing else in the world 
she could do well. 

Why was life made up of things one had to do? Why 
couldn’t duty and desire lie in the same direction? Always 
duty went one way and desire pulled another. What if some 
magic wand could be waved and give her a wish! She 
glanced furtively around. Miss Ann and Miss Rilla were 
in the front of the house. Mrs. Carlson was upstairs clean- 
ing. It made her feel less ashamed of her dream because 
she was alone. This was it: To marry Walt Thomas and 
live with him. Every day. To do dishes just for herself 
and. Walt .....to - cook for: -him .) andes! Sraise 
chickens . . . and have a flower garden. And a baby. It 
was wicked to think like that. But she didn’t care. Nobody 
could enter into that inner place in her brain where the 
dream lay. And nobody would ever know it. She and Walt 
and a baby . . . that was her wish, right out plain in her 
mind. Miss Ann opened the kitchen door and Waltiand the 
baby hastily vanished into the land from whence they 
had come .. . the land that was only desire. 


All afternoon Essie went about her tasks, hope of anything © 


different drowned in a sea of boarding-house dishwater. All 
afternoon she took orders. 


“Essie,” Miss Ann would say, “get the things ready for 


the potato salad as soon as you are through. And don’t 
forget that Miss Gunn doesn’t want any and we'll have to 


have something else for her. There are carbohydrates in the — 
potato salad. My soul ... you’d think they were some 


kind of sah Can bugs, to hear her.” 


“Essie,” Miss Rilla would say, “will you please ice my | 


cake? You do it just as well as I do now.” Miss Ann gavel) 
commands. Miss Rilla made requests. 


THE DIARIES CAST THEIR SHADOW 129 


At four-thirty o’clock, Miss Ann opened the door from the 
old butler’s pantry and put out her head. 

“Essie, there’s Walt Thomas driving in with the load of 
cobs. I happened to hear the crunching on the drive. Go out 
and tell him to push all the old ones to the far end of the 
shed first.” 

Essie, half frightened at the news, as though her thoughts 

might have called Walt out bodily from that country of the 
heart, wiped her hands and gave her hair a swift pushing 
into shape. She went down the back steps and out past the 
fancy old barn. There he was swinging down easily from 
the high lumber wagon. He looked very big and fine and 
strong. | 

“H’lo, Essie,” Walt spoke good-naturedly in that disin- 
terested way that she had long since schooled herself to 
expect. 

“H’lo, Walt. Miss Ann sent me to tell you to please 
push the old cobs back to the far end first.” Miss Ann had 
not said “please” but every translator reserves some privi- 
leges. 

Walt threw back his head and laughed. “As though 
I wouldn’t have had the gumption to. That old lady ought 
to have been a section boss.” 

Essie laughed too. It seemed a relief to hear some one 
criticize Miss Ann herself, the way she picked at other 
people. 

“Did you get an invitation to the doings?” Walt asked. 

Her heart leaped against her throat. “Yes.” 

“Ts Nancy home from school yet?” 

Essie’s heart settled back. “I think so.” 

“Ask her if she'll run out here a minute, will you?” 

So Essie called Nancy, who had just come in, and went 
on with her dinner work, a plodder with nothing but dreams 
for hyacinths upon which to feed her soul. Nancy ran out 


130 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


to the cob shed with, “Hello there, Walter, led-by-the-halter,” 
an old phrase from their childhood. 

Walt wanted to take Nancy to the class reunion. 

“But Essie and I are going to put up our lunch together,” 
she said frankly. 

Walt grinned. “Then you mean I’ve got to ask Essie 
too?” : 

“Yes, I do. United we stand, divided we fall . . . short 
of eatables.” 

So when Walt was through with his work he tied the 
team to the cobhouse door and went up to the back porch. 
“Essie, I’d like to take you and Nancy to the picnic,” he 
told her, “unless you’ve a date for it.” 

Walt might have known she had no date. She flushed 
so that it left her wistful face half pretty. Of course she 
knew it was all Nancy’s doings, but she was too kind-hearted 
to embarrass him by saying so. “Why, thank you, Walt,” 
she said, “I’d like to go.” 

Upstairs Nancy was dressing to make another call. She 
was going up to the Rinelands’ to return Alice’s and her 
mother’s visit at the farm. She dressed carefully, with many 
backward thoughts to the time when her clothes had been so 
neatly and so clumsily made by Aunt Biny. Satisfied with 
results, she left the “Bee-House” and went up the hill to the 
Italian Renaissance house. 

The grounds were well platted with shrubbery but it was © 
small yet and the newness of the place accentuated by it. 

Nancy stepped up to the formal entrance and lifted the 
gondola-shaped knocker. “It’s a wonder they didn’t dig 
a canal in front and build an imitation Bridge of Sighs 
across it,” she thought. 

No one came. Nancy knocked again. Then she slipped _ 
some cards in the door and left. She could not know that . 
Mrs. Rineland had peeked cautiously out from behind the 


\ H| 


# 
THE DIARIES CAST THEIR SHADOW 131 _ 


rose and lace draperies and when she saw who it was had 
decided not to go to the door. Alice was not at home. She 
was glad of that for she was not anxious to have Alice “get 
thick” with the girl. 

The class reunion with its picnic supper was to be on 
Wednesday. Miss Ann growled a little when Essie broached 
the subject to her. Miss Rilla came to the rescue with tears 
in her eyes. “Ill do as much of her work as I can, sister, 
if you will let her go.” 

But it was Nancy who walked up to the stiff Miss Ann 
and slipped supple arms around the hard unyielding waist. 
“Miss Ann, you know down in your heart you wouldn’t have 
_ Essie the only one to miss this for the world, now, would 
you?” 

Miss Ann’s face relaxed a little but she held herself 
stiffly and gave forth, “Well, I know somebody’s got to be 
working in this world all the time. And it seems like it has 
to be me.” 

Walt came for the girls with his cheap car all clean and 
shining. And Walt, too, was clean and shining even though 
he was as brown as the corn-tassels in the late September 
fields. When he saw the girls with their basket in the old 
reception hall he was not sorry he had been inveigled into 
asking Essie too. Essie was a nice girl. She wasn’t lovely 
like Nancy but she was neat and he sort of liked her. She 
was so quiet and didn’t worry a fellow. Nancy now could 
make him feel pretty cheap sometimes when she talked off 
on a tangent over some fool thing so that he didn’t more 
than half get her. But Essie was easy to understand. 

Warner Field came up the front walk just as they were 
leaving. “Don’t you wish you had graduated from the 
Maple City High School four years ago?” Nancy smiled 
at him as they passed. 

“Don’t I, though?” Warner smiled too. It was easy to 


132 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


smile with Nancy Moore. Her gayety seemed infectious. 
Up in his room he told himself that he had better watch his 
step. He had known her a scant three weeks and already 
was thinking too much about her. She was saucy but she 
had a certain charm for him. At times she was flippant but 
she fascinated him. She was really not the type that he 
admired at all. To be quite specific Alice Rineland was the 
type he admired . . . gentle, womanly; soft-spoken. And 
he had never been able to shake off the knowledge that 
Nancy had left her uncle’s home under some sort’ of a 
cloud. Granted that he should never have known it, the 
fact remained that he did know. Conceded that he had been 
all kinds of a cad to have read those diaries, the fact re- 
mained that he had done so. In his room he went over 


and over the memory of the diaries again. Those last pages 


he knew by heart. She had been happy and contented and 
then something had happened. No small thing either, for 
it had driven her away from a good home, and she had not 
been back until now. “Something has happened . . . some- 
thing dreadful. My mind is crowded with a thousand 
things to write. But I shall never write in you again. Good- 
by, little diaries. Good-by, thrushes and lilacs and or- 
chard and Tinkling Creek! Good-by, my prairie! And 
most of all, good-by, Nancy Moore! Oh, Nancy Moore, I 
loved you. Good-by.” 

He stood by the window, looking down in the “Bee- 
House” yard, unseeing. What was it? What had happened? 
He had reason to believe Walt Thomas knew. The only 
thing he could think of was . . . damnable. He whirled on 
his heel as though to walk away from the sickening picture 
which his mind had conjured. No, she had been sweet and 
lovely. All through the girlish diaries she had been like 
a fragrant breeze. And she was, now... sweet and 
lovely . . . and like a fragrant breeze. With his hands in 


THE DIARIES CAST THEIR SHADOW 133 


his pockets he walked about the room restlessly thinking 
it over. If he himself had kept decent it was because of 
a certain self-respect and not because he hadn’t seen rotten 
things on all sides of him. They happened .. . every- 
where. But not to Nancy. He was clenching his fists . . . 
not to Nancy Moore! He brought himself up with a jerk. 
Why should he care? He would stop thinking about it... 
one way or the other. It was her own secret, whatever it 
was. He had troubles enough of his own without adding 
to them a by-gone incident in the life of a girl he had 
known three weeks and who was not laboring under any 
weight of trouble herself. He had control of himself again, 
_ was grinning at the idea of Nancy Moore, the light-hearted, 
crushed under any burden of woe. This was the last time 
he would ever give a thought to it. If he was going to stew 
_ around like an old woman, he had his own financial worries 
to think about. He had four hundred dollars saved toward 
the debt. A heck of a lot, wasn’t it, he said to himself 
sarcastically. At this rate he’d be in his dotage by the time 
it was canceled. Yes, he had lots of reason to give any 
thought to a girl, he said dryly. After which decision he 
proceeded to lie awake that night until he had heard 
Nancy’s high bubbling laughter down on the porch. 

At the breakfast table Warner asked the little waitress 
girl, “Did you have a nice time last night, Essie?” 

“T should say . . . the best time!” Essie broke into a 
happy girlish smile. “But we wouldn’t if it hadn’t been 
for Nancy. She stirred everybody up. She made us all 
feel like we were kids again. She gave every one some work 
- todo. She sent Walt Thomas and me after dead branches 
to make the fire, and she got Alice Rineland to dish up the 
lemonade and pass it around to us.” Essie giggled as though 
a great event had been consummated. She glanced around. 
It was early and there was no one in sight but Major Slack, 


134 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


in fond and silent contemplation of his cakes. She said it 
almost savagely, “Nancy Moore is the loveliest person I 


ever knew.” 
Warner Field wondered whether he was in any state of — 


mind to argue the point with her. 


CHAPTER XIV 
THE PRAIRIE PEOPLE LIVE 
oe in the mid-west, when she lives up to tradi- 


tion, is a beautiful thing. Great splashes of brilliant 

maples, shining bronze-leaved oaks, elms as tawny 
as a lion’s mane! Scarlet-flamed sumac, walnuts bursting 
_their green leathery cases, pears clinging to sepia-colored 
branches. The winter wheat, looking out of place as though 
it had come at the wrong time, is faintly green in patches 
_ against the brown of the newly plowed earth and the tan of 
the cornfields. There is a haze on the hills, a soft blue far- 
away haze, that is dissipated as one rides into it. It seems 
to cling between the hills but when one descends into the 
valley it is not there. It is a mysterious thing . . . to dis- 
appear . . . and then to be seen in the distance again. . . 
ghostly smoke from the Indian campfires of long ago. 

It is the month when the winds cease. There is a quiet- 
ness upon the earth as though nature had set aside the 
month for prayer. The evenings are cool, the nights frosty, 
the mornings balmy, the afternoons warm as summer, only 
to slip again into the cool of evenings and the frostiness 
of nights. And over all hovers that brooding calm, that 
hush in the temple of God. 

It always intrigued Aunt Biny. Long moments she would 
stand on the back porch and look to the rim of the prairie. 
The hills swelled and dipped, black with their newly turned 
earth, yellow with their wheat stubbles, tawny brown with 
their corn, green with the first faint promise of winter 

135 


136 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


wheat. The picture satisfied her very soul . . . the fulfill- 
ment of the miracle of spring. She thought many beautiful 
things standing there leaning on her crutch. She found 
voice for them in words that rose to her lips from the 
depths of a thankful heart. “I will lift up mine eyes unto 
the hills . . . from whence cometh my help. ...” Aunt 
Biny’s schooling had been limited, and her experiences cir- 
cumscribed; her days had been filled with pain, and her 
life held its sorrow; but the words of her mouth and the 
meditations of her heart were acceptable in His sight. 
Uncle Jud had none of her definite expression of thank- 
fulness. He only knew that he liked his farm, that there 
was no place else on earth he would live. He had that one- 
ness with the land which the faithful have, a feeling that he 
was as rooted there as the things which grew and thrived 


and bore for him. To have a neighbor find fault and move 


away to another state was to rile Uncle Jud into a wrath be- 
yond understanding. For months he talked of nothing else. 
“Must think he’s goin’ to paradise,” he would say crossly. 
“What more’s he want than good old Nebraska?” 

Nebraska was a person to him, a living personality. He 
spoke of it as “she” and extolled her virtues as one would 
compliment a woman. “How'd they get along without her 
wheat ’n corn ’n meat ’n butter ’n eggs ’n potatoes ’n ap- 
ples, you tell me, will you?” He would argue one-sidedly 
with people who had not even contradicted him. He would 
have been as loyal, of course, toward any other state in 
which he had located. Faithfulness, loyalty, they were part 
of him. He had fought prairie fires. He had seen grass- 


hoppers take the last green bit of his crops. He had seen the — 


; wind in its madness lay them low. He had watched the hail 
strip his corn as clean as the grasshoppers had done and in 
far less time. He had seen drought hang over the land like a 
huge spirit of malediction. But he did not blame Nebraska. 


don Seng 


THE PRAIRIE PEOPLE LIVE 137 


She was like a woman to him, ill, in trouble, and sad. He 
was more sorry for her than for himself who had to stand by 
and watch the consequences of her illness. He would no 
more have thought of reviling and leaving her than of re- 
viling and leaving Aunt Biny when she had one of her bad 
spells. 

~ Nick Denning on the north particularly irritated Uncle 
Jud at times. “What d’ we get out of it all?” he would say 
to Uncle Jud. “Work from morning till night, take cheap 
hogs to market and bring home high-priced sugar and 
coffee. Take cheap cream in and bring home sky-high 
shoe leather and the middlemen getting the profits with the 
- farmer at the bottom of the heap.” 

“Doggone it, Nick,” Uncle Jud would snap back... 
“You’re always wantin’ to know what you get out of it. 
~ You get a darn good home. Your children get the finest 
kind of an education. You get a plenty to eat. You ride in 
a big car like John D.’s and nobody tells you ‘this is the day 
you gotta do so-’n-so’; ’n you get the feelin’ that you’re 
livin’ in the best state in the union. That’s what you get 
out of it.” 

On the first Sunday afternoon in October Nancy came 
into the sitting room where the two old folks sat. The big 
coal burner stood now in its place, its huge blackness as 
shiny as an Ethiopian, its nickel trimmings burnished to a 
mirrorlike surface. There was no fire in it. Its isinglass 
gave forth only hollow depths of gray. Uncle Jud with 
the help of Walt Thomas had devoted a half day on Satur- 
day to the task of getting the bulky thing into place. It was 
a ceremony that he performed every fall on the first Satur- 
day in October regardless of weather conditions. “You 
never can tell,” he would opine. “I ain’t goin’ to be 
caught in a cold snap i me in the house ’n the stove in 


the barn.” 


138° THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


The two old folks were having a little argument about 
it now. 

“Ought to a-built a fire in it the minute it was set,” Uncle 
Jud was complaining. “Chilly in here right now.” 

“Why, Pa! No!” Aunt Biny contradicted gently. “It’s 
so warm and mild everywhere to-day.” 

“No ’tain’t . . . not in here. I just’s soon be plum cold ’n 
be done with it... as that kind-a-chilly way with little 
waves of it up ’n down your backbone.” 

Nancy stood looking fondly at the two. She had a mater- 
nal feeling toward them. They had taken her when she 
was tiny and cared tenderly for her, and she had grieved 
them sorely. She was making up for it this year, was try- 
ing to think of all the things she could do for them to make 
amends. Just now, hearing the argument, she said sud- 


denly, “Folks, why don’t you sell the place and go to — 


California? It would be just fine for you . . . so mild and 


nice and you could be out so much all winter. Why, it’s 


just the thing. Why haven’t we talked about it before?” 
She was waxing enthusiastic as she always did over any 
subject. i 

Uncle Jud flew up immediately. “Sell nothin’, What’s 
the matter with folks! That’s what I hear on all sides 
lately. | Nobody’s been talkin’ to me about anything but 
sellin’.” | 

“Pa, Pa!” Aunt Biny cautioned him. “Not a soul be- 
side Nancy has said a thing to you but Major Slack.” 

“Well, that’s enough, ain’t it?” 

“Now, why don’t you, Uncle Jud?” Nancy came and 
sat down on a stool near him. “What’s the place worth, 
one hundred and seventy-five dollars an acre?” 

“A hundred seventy-five, nothin’! Two hundred if it’s 
» worth a cent.” 

“Well, so much the better. That’s thirty-two thousand 


THE PRAIRIE PEOPLE LIVE *1a9 


dollars. Why, that’s fine! And what else have you. Uncle 
Jud . . . in the bank?” 


“Twenty-five hundred dollars on time.” 


“Good . . . and the corn this year and some of last... 
and the stock and machinery. How much more would that 
bring?” 


“Oh, maybe two thousand more.” 

“All right . . . say thirty-six thousand and out at interest 
would bring you... let’s see... five times six... 
eighteen hundred dollars a year. That’s only a hundred 
and fifty dollars a month. I wonder if you could live on a 
hundred and fifty a month?” 
_ “My, the fifty would be plenty,” Aunt Biny contributed, 
“for just Pa and me.” | 

Nancy laughed. “You blessed old Aunt Biny. . . how 
far do you think fifty dollars would go if you got away 
from home? About as far as that little candle throws its 
beams, and ‘the good deed shines in a naughty world.’ You 
folks don’t realize what you’ve had on the farm . . . milk, 
cream, butter, meat, chickens, eggs, soap. When you start 
to buy these things, Aunt Biny, you'll think you had a big 
income here. And anyway you wouldn’t have to live on 
the hundred and fifty. Get into the principal of your 
money for at least a thousand dollars or more a year. It’s 
yours, and who else is entitled to spend it? I’d like to see, 
you use every cent for yourselves, and not leave it for rela- 
tives to scrap over. You folks must do this now... plan 
to sell right away. When I leave in May you go back to 
Indiana and then to California in the fall.” 

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to quit farmin’ for a while and that’s 
all there is to it,” Uncle Jud finished crossly. 

But by the time Warner Field drove into the yard in the 
early evening Uncle Jud’s crossness had left him. A cas- 
ual reference of Warner’s to the splendid corn crop h 


140 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


him off, taken him back to that old pioneer past of which 
he was so fond. 

“°Tain’t much like eighteen seventy-four, Field. That’s 
the year the grasshoppers come. “Iwas in July. Crops 
was all doin’ well. Corn was knee high ’n better. Gardens 
was full of tomatoes ’n radishes ’n potatoes ’n onions. Was 
early afternoon and the’ come up what looked like a big 
cloud from the west ’n covered the sun. *“Twan’t no cloud 
a-tall. *I'was them pesky grasshoppers. First we knew 
here ’n there a grasshopper kept droppin’ on the ground. 
All at once they just come down... rained down... 
poured down . . . the sons-of-guns! They covered every- 
thing . . . a crunchy, wiggly, crawlin’ mass of ’em. 

“They started to eat their supper . . . and doggone it 
. . . it was some supper. First time I’d see Ma cry since we 
come West. Set down with her apron over her head and 
cried. Couldn’t look at her garden she’d worked so hard 
on, bein’ et up. One of the first things they et was onion 
tops. Wasn’t stylish grasshoppers a-tall. Liked ’em fine. 
Et ’em clean off to the ground so’s you’d never know was 
onions there. Ma ’n me saw the’ was no savin’ the corn so 
we come a trick on ’em. Next night they got sluggish “long 
supper time. ’N we went out to the garden and drove em 
off into the cornfield. Took brooms ’n swept ’em ’n drove 
*em. Had a well, you know, with bucket ’n rope. Had to 
keep the bucket covered tight ’n the well too. Or we'd 
pump ’em up.” 

“How long did they stay?” 

“Stay? Lord, they wa’n’t sensitive. They stayed all 
summer. Wore their welcome out ’n stayed on. Et up 
everything and laid their eggs for the next year. Et? Lord, 
Field, they et the handles off the pitchforks and that ain’t a 
ioke either. It’s the A’mighty’s truth. Bored in ’n et the 
ood handles off the pitchforks. Darn near et my coat 


THE PRAIRIE PEOPLE LIVE 141 


off my back. Went up to old man Denning’s. . . Nick’s 
father . . . ’n when I got there had a hole as big as a saucer 
in the back of my coat.” 

“How did you live? What did you eat?” 

“Well, we lived some on potatoes and some on charity, I 
can tell you that. Folks from Iowa ’n Illinois sent car- 
loads of grain out. Had some in the stores at Maple City 
’n distributed it around. After the pesky things started 
hibernatin? Ma found a big beet under some boards ’n 
boxes that the things had missed. Had Dennings come 
down to dinner, ’twas such a treat.” 

“And yet... you stayed on.” Warner’s wonderment 
_ was genuine. 

“Oh, lots of settlers was scared out. That was enough 
of Nebraska for them. But Ma, she kept tellin’ me she 
knew the Lord wasn’t goin’ to pick on Nebraska long. If 
we'd stay ’n keep the commandments...” he winked 
at Warner, . . . “’n say our prayers every night ’n plant 
some more crops, she reckoned the Lord would see us 
through. Well, I made a bargain with her,” he said 
soberly. “I agreed to plant the crops all over the next 
year if she’d keep the commandments ’n do the prayin’.” 
He slapped his knee with his huge hand and roared. 
“Worked fine. Good team work.” He roared again. “Me 
workin’ like a.son-of-a-gun ’n Ma keepin’ the command- 
ments ’n prayin’.” 

“Pa! Pa!” Aunt Biny remonstrated. It worried her 

. . to have Warner think that Pa was sacrilegious. 

When Warner and Nancy drove away, Warner was still 
thinking about it . . . the hardihood, the faith, the courage 
of the people who stayed and saw the thing through. What 
a stupendous thing they had done for the country! He ex- 
pressed these thoughts to Nancy. “It was war, wasn’t it? 
The whole frontier was a battleline. They fought for civil- 


142 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


ization. The enemy was nature herself in all her primitive- 
ness. The new furrows from the virgin soil were the 
trenches. They buried some who fell by the way. Others 
deserted. There was not even army discipline to keep them 
steadfast. Their own decision, their own courage bade them 
stay. Those who grew fainthearted could return East un- 
rebuked. The more I see of your Uncle Jud Moore the 
more he seems a great personality . . . a man who had the 
faithfulness and the valor to fight for civilization, And 
your Aunt Biny, a gentle woman who would have been.safer 
and more comfortable in the old eastern home, urged him to 
stay . . . a frail woman standing at his side as though to 


hand him the ammunition with which to conquer. And they 


have conquered, haven’t they . . . your Uncle Jud and those 
others?” Warner threw out his hand to take in the picture. 


The country on either side of the two young people in the © 


roadster lay bathed in the afternoon October sunshine. The 
road over which they were driving had once been an Indian 


trail but conforming to the compass of the surveyor now. 


ran straight before them, hard packed as a pavement shin- 
ing with the countless travel of huge cars. Great fields of 
cornstalks heavy with the golden ears of their bearing stood 
on every side awaiting the last two weeks of their maturing. 
_ “Nebraska is conquered,” Warner went on. “Like a huge 
| giant it lies with man’s foot on its supine body. Fields are 
fertile. Orchards are fruitful. Pastures yield their heavy 
gifts. There are cattle on a thousand hills. Great consol- 
idated schools, substantial and comfortable, flags without 
and libraries within, center in many districts. And all 
in one man’s lifetime! What a heritage your Uncle Jud 
and his coworkers have given to the new generations!” 
Nancy did not know whether he had finished . . . or 
paused, but she turned to him, her brown eyes glowing. 
“Write it . . -” she said. 


ee 


THE PRAIRIE PEOPLE LIVE 143 


That night Warner slept fitfully. Around two o’clock he 
turned and tossed and half awoke. He did not know 
whether he had been dreaming or whether, having pondered 
much on the subject, he was still merely thinking of it. 
Whether the thing lay in his conscious mind, was buried in 
the subconscious one or on the borderland between the 
two, he was not sure. He only knew that he lay quietly, 
almost shaken with the reality of the vision. The wagons 
crept slowly over the prairie . . . brawny men in them... 
and gentle women. From one of them a girl slipped out 
and stood on the brow of the hill . . . a long low rolling 
hill and laughed gayly as she pointed toward a creek with 
its fringe of cottonwoods and wild plums. She had warm 
brown eyes and brown hair and the curve of her chin and 
throat was a lovely thing to see. She was like a candle in 
the dusk . . . a flame in the dark. So vivid was the picture 
that he lay still, almost fearful that the thing would van- 
ish like a mirage. He had the dual sensation of looking on 
and being one of the men. He saw himself hasten to the 
top of the low hill to join the girl, fearful that she might go 
on without him. As he neared the top of the hill she threw 
him a laughing, tender glance over her shoulder and the 
flame of her vanished into the west and mingled with the 
sunset. E 

His pulses were throbbing. His mind, too, seemed puls- 
ing with its effort to catch and hold the half-dream. Sud- 
denly he rose, threw on his bathrobe and sat down at his 
desk. He wrote quickly, enthusiastically, warmed by the 
fire of his emotions. The pages he cast hurriedly to one 
side so that they made an untidy mass around him. He 
merely outlined, touched rapidly the high points of the 
story. Like a sculptor he was shaping the first big crude 
form from clay. Later would come the real writing. To- 
night he was only catching the idea that, like the dream it 


144 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


was, might be gone in the morning. He wrote feverishly. 
Clay in the hand of the potter! What matter that other 
people had written it? What matter that it was only one 
more approach to the romantic history of the building of 
the mid-west? No one had written his story. Each one 
sees life differently. No one had felt the same sympathy 
with the adventure of the man in the prairie-schooner who 
was to wrestle with the land and in time to put his foot 
on the supine body of the giant. No one had seen the 
elusive charm of the brown-eyed girl standing on the 
brow of a hill and pointing to the rim of the prairie. 
And no one had felt the sweeping love that the man bore 
for the girl who was like a candle in the dusk. . . a flame 
in the dark. 

Not in all those weary months since his father’s affair and 
his illness had his mind gathered together its forces as it 
was doing now. He felt for the first time the old thrill in 
constructing, an excitement in working, a pleased expectancy 
for the result. He had the old sensation of hot blood cours- 
ing through his veins, of being unable to write fast enough, 
a tingling and tenseness of nerves. It was the old fire. 
When he went to bed it was nearly dawn. Tired from 
expending so much emotional energy he still had that 


strange exultation over catching and caging the flying evad- 


ing thing he had sought. With a great feeling of thank- 


fulness he lay down. The lost word . . . was it coming 
back to him? The terrible cloud of worry which had 
hung over him. . . was it to be dispelled? 


After breakfast he hurried to the bank with a new ela- 
tion upon him. Rather it was a renewed elation for he 
had felt it many times before, that plessure in catching a 
fleeting vision and holding it. He begrudged the mechan- 
ical hours before him at his work. A few weeks ago he 


had said he would forget his writing and give his entire 


THE PRAIRIE PEOPLE LIVE 145 


time to enlarging his knowledge of the business. Already 
he had a feeling of disloyalty to Mr. Rineland, knowing 
that the months were numbered in which he would want to 
sacrifice so much precious time. 

He went into the bank. The school bells were ringing. 
A groceryman came in to deposit his Saturday night re- 
ceipts. Jim Swanson came in to see if he could borrow two 
dollars and fifty cents. Once more the day’s grind had 
begun. 


CHAPTER XV 
THE FRIENDSHIP PROGRESSES 


gered about in the old reception hall, listlessly, a 

little aimlessly. No one seemed to know just what 

to do. It had taken Nancy to start things and keep them 
going and Nancy was not there. 

Warner Field did not even stop in the hall but sprang up 

the long curving stairs boyishly. His evening’s work was 


QO N that first Monday night in October the boarders lin- 


before him. He went to it in a pleased frame of mind, 
hopefully, and with keen interest. When he closed the door | 
of his room it was as though he shut it upon the boarders | 
and the mechanical work of the bank and closeted himself | 


with the prairie people. 


One by one the boarders drifted to their rooms, all but } 
Dr. Pearson, who had a date with a patient, and Marty ‘ 


Spencer, who had a date with a girl. 


Nancy was in the kitchen. “I came out to wipe the | 
dishes,” she had announced to Essie, when she breezed in. || 


The kind act brought the tears to Miss Rilla’s eyes. 


“I guess Essie can do it herself,” Miss Ann said a little | 
snappishly. She had been around town paying the bills of | 
the past month and it made her cross to think the boarders | 


had consumed so much provender. 


“I wish I could feed them on oatmeal and kippered her- | 
ring a whole month until I got ahead,” she had said sav- 


agely to Miss Rilla. 


But Nancy wiped the dishes. It took more than Miss | | 


146 


THE FRIENDSHIP PROGRESSES 147 


Ann’s growling to feeze Nancy Moore. When she had 
finished, she said, frankly, “Now, Miss Ann. . . all I ask 
for pay is that you’ll let me make a batch of candy.” 

Miss Ann was amazed. No boarder had ever had the te- 
merity to come into the kitchen, to say nothing of dipping 
into the food supplies. She protested crossly, “Everything 
will be sticky and what will you have to show for it?” 

“Nothing will be sticky . . .” Nancy coaxed, “and [ll 
have the best tasting stuff you ever let melt in your mouth to 
show for it.” 

To Essie it was nothing short of miraculous to hear Miss 
Ann’s grudging, “Well, go ahead, and leave things clean.” 

When the candies were finished the maker and finisher of 
them went to the various doors on the second and third 
floors with her “burnt offerings” as she called them. She 
knocked first at Warner Field’s. When he answered her 
knock she asked, “Fudge or taffy?” and added pertly, “ “Bet- 
ter fifty years of Fudge than a cycle of Taffay.’” 

She took the opportunity to dart a glance in Warner’s 
room. She could see papers everywhere around his desk. 
And the typewriter stood open with a paper in it. He was 
working at his writing again. For some reason she was 
unaccountably glad. 

She tapped at Ambrose Jones's door. He opened it a few 
inches so that only one eye showed. Nancy could scarcely 
keep her face straight. When he saw who it was he slipped 
out from the smallest possible opening and closed it tightly 
behind him. Nancy grinned to herself to see him so fear- 
ful and so disturbed. Outside he scraped and smiled and 
bowed over and over against the tightly closed door of 
his room. 

She went to the Kendalls’. She could hear them talking. 
They were not very discriminating in the choice of tones with 
which they were addressing each other. She could hear 


148 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


" a Ay 
aye ee 


George, “Fat chance I have of getting anything ahead.” 
Genevieve’s voice rose pettishly, “You wouldn’t care if I 
went around looking like a gypsy.”” Nancy stood her ground. 
She was not going to run away. When Genevieve came to 
the door her voice changed, “How lovely, Nancy!” Nancy’s 
lip curled. What a marriage! 

She went to Major Slack’s door. The Major swung the 
door open wide. He was pompous, and pleased. Behind 
him Nancy could see the tray of a trunk across two chairs. 
He waved his hand toward it. “My pictures and diaries of 
the Spanish-American War,” he explained concisely. “I’ve 
been looking at the one and reading the other. This is the 
date on which we received orders from Major General Lee, 
ordering the Seventh Army Corps to make arrangements to 
proceed to Savannah in preparation to embarking for Cuba. 
General Lee had been in Washington and the order came 
from there.” He would have gone on indefinitely if Nancy 
had not started away. He munched his candy with su- 
perior satisfaction. The Major liked to eat. “He should 
have married Mattie Thomas,” Nancy thought as she left. 
“It would have been an ideal combination.” 

She tapped at Miss Gunn’s door. Miss Gunn had on a 
green eye shade. She held her finger in a closed book of 
portentous size. “I was reading about our ancestors, the 
monkeys. When you came I was so far in the past I could — 
scarcely bring myself into the present to think who you 
were.” | 

Nancy’s high mirthful laughter bubbled forth infectiously. 
“Miss Gunn cracked a joke and didn’t know it,” she told 
Helen Blakely. 

All evening and far into the night Warner wrote. The 
story was unfolding rapidly. Nancy Moore seemed to be 
in it. . . not this modern Nancy but a pioneer girl of the 
same gay spirits braving the hardships of the new country.§ 


i 
Sty | 


as 
fi 
é 


THE FRIENDSHIP PROGRESSES 149 


‘She was part of the prairie . . . the breath of it. She came 
out of the sunrise and rode into the sunset. . 

Miss Ann and Miss Rilla in their own room on the sec- 
ond floor, spent the evening in discussing their finances. 
They sat there together, similarity in their looks, their navy 
blue dresses with white lace fichus made just alike. But 
Miss Ann was discouraged, Miss Rilla was optimistic. 

“It’s no use,” Miss Ann decided, “it’s making no money. 
For all the work I hardly break even.”” She assumed all the 
responsibility. 

Miss Rilla’s eyes moistened with the happiness of her 
thought. “It was a hard month, sister. Things were un- 
usually high and we had to replace some table linen and get 
those dishes. This month may not be so much better but 
I’m just sure that next month you'll come through with 
flying colors.” | 

“Next month,” Miss Ann’s voice was bitter, “will be 
Thanksgiving and the next one Christmas, and in January 
we'll burn up all our profits and in February we’ll eat them 
up and in March come the taxes. I declare a person might 
better be dead and free from worry.” 

“Oh, I’m glad I’m alive.” Miss Rilla held on to her hap- 
piness as a child clutches a plaything. 

“Oh, you!” Miss Ann’s worries made her acrid. “Your 
middle name is Little Sunshine!” 

They went to bed. Miss Rilla humbly asked the Lord 
to help them. Miss Ann’s attitude toward her Maker was 
that she guessed she had the gumption to manage things yet 
awhile herself. 

At two o’clock Miss Rilla got up to shut a banging bath- 
room door. There was a light under Warner Field’s door 
_and it worried her so that she tapped to see if anything was 
the matter. She had grown enormously fond of this grave, 
courteous young man. 


150 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“No, [’m all right, Miss Rilla, thank you. V’m sorry 
about the light. Ill stop now.” There were papers all 
over his desk and his typewriter stood open. 

“There’s nothing wrong,” she told Miss Ann when she 
came back to bed. “He’s been writing.” 

“Nothing wrong but the crack in his brain,” was Miss 
Ann’s pleasant rejoinder. Considering the boarders usur- 
pers as she did, she held a warlike attitude toward their 
very existence. And this one, who was burning electricity 
at fifteen cents per kilowatt, particularly irritated her. 

School was going fairly well now for Nancy. She bun- 
gled some. But Miss Gunn was helpful and patient. “I never 
half appreciated her,” Nancy told Warner the next eve- 
ning in the seat by the stairs. “Now, you’d think she was un- 
interesting, wouldn’t you, she’s so full of her old statistics 


and culture and mental improvement. But she’s the most — 


patient woman I ever saw. She’s quiet and she’s dignified, 


and there isn’t a mean kid down in that district but what — 


will kowtow to her. She never loses her temper with them. 
She’s just even and calm but as firm as Gibraltar. I’ve 


seen those big eighth-grade boys act like the old Nick but 
let Miss Gunn come casually upon the scene and they flatten © 


out like melted butter. She doesn’t punish them. Once 


in a great while she gives somebody an old-fashioned pun- — 
ishment, but they are few and far apart. Most of the 


time she just looks at the youngsters and they shrivel up 
and blow away.” | : 
“And how are your families down there?” Warner 


wanted to know. He enjoyed watching her when she talked, 
the way her brown eyes lighted, the curve of her mobile © 
mouth, the lovely contour of her face. Just now her eyes — 


twinkled and her mouth melted into delicious laughter. 


“You've no idea how attached one gets to them,” she con- 
fessed. “Take the Carlsons. I’ve grown so wrapped up — 


THE FRIENDSHIP PROGRESSES 151. 


in them that I feel just like one of them. It worries me 
trying to think of some way that we can paper the sitting’ 
room this fall and wondering whether it would be better 
to set out lilacs or syringas between us and the Swansons. 
The Swanson next-to-the-littlest baby eats everything, in- 
doors and out, so we don’t know whether he’d let the bushes 
grow or masticate them into a pulp. And then the Rhode 
Island Reds . . . we get so mad at them that we’re going 
to kill them some day and hang their old red heads on 
the fence between us.” 

Warner grinned. Naturally quiet and uncommunicative, 
he never talked much when he was with Nancy. He never 
had to. He sat back and let her ramble on and enjoyed 
her. 

“On the other hand,” she said soberly, “I am equally at 
home with the Swansons now. We don’t think our Rhode 
Island Reds pester them half as much as they try to make 
out . . . the stubborn things! They’ve got Plymouth 
Rocks themselves and once we found one of their old hens 
pecking at our soap we had hardening outside in atub. And 
did we make any fuss? We did not. All in the world 
we said was we hoped it would clog her old gizzard and 
kill her.” 

Warner’s laugh was ample reward. 

“Life is certainly queer,” Nancy was suddenly sober and 
sincere. It was one of her charms, Warner thought, her 
quick changes from humor to sympathy. “Friends of mine 


. in college . . . and others . . . if they give people 
like the Carlsons a thought at all... and it’s precious 
little they do . . . it’s just with a sort of contempt for them. 


I wish I could make them understand. I’d like to go back 
and tell them. But what would be the use? People with 
‘preconceived notions don’t want to have them changed. 
The Carlsons . . . why are they to be held so in disdain 


152 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


or pitied? They are decent and law-abiding. They all 
work. The children are healthy and normal. The girls 
are clean and neat with good wholesome ideas. And there’s 
one thing they have, a happy outlook on life in just as 
great measure as most of the people I know. They’re not 
entitled to any disdain and they don’t want any pity. I 
can’t just express it but it’s something like this: If you 
are an outsider and look into the house, you pity a family 
like that. But if you are a member of it and look out of 
the house, you don’t pity yourself. You are busy and 
full of hope for better things. I wish I could make... . 
some people understand it.” 

“T’m afraid you’d not make a typical social uplifter.” 

“T suppose not. But isn’t life queer?” 

“Quite queer!” Warner repeated it ironically. 


“Now there’s this marriage question.” She tackled it 


earnestly. “Mrs. Bornheimer’s husband is dead and she’s 


grieving all the time about it. Mattie Thomas’s is gone, 


and she’s tickled to death over it. And here are George 
and Genevieve Kendall hanging on and worrying each other 


into shreds. Did you ever think that if they would just 


say funny things to each other once in a while how much 


better they would get along? They’re so solemn about 
everything. They take themselves so horribly seriously. 
If Genevieve would just laugh back at him when he rakes 
her over the coals about her old bridge parties and if 


she’d just once in a while give up her way to him, but she 
gets all ‘het up’ over everything. A sense of humor ought 
to be cultivated like cauliflowers.” 


But Genevieve Kendall had no sense of humor, nor in fact 


a sense of many of the important issues of life. It was | 


/ 


only the next day that Mrs. Carlson, cleaning at the “Bee- 
House,” saw Lily bringing the baby upstairs where she | 
was. The baby was Pee and Lily told her mother 7 


THE FRIENDSHIP PROGRESSES 153 


thought it was better to bring him up than to let him get 
too hungry and overeat and have colic. Lily was only eleven 
and already she knew more about baby tending than many 
young matrons in town. So Mrs. Carlson, apologizing to 
Miss Ann for the time it took, nursed the baby and then 
put it in George and Genevieve Kendall’s room because the 
sun was shining across the bed and he could lie and watch | 
it until he went off to sleep. She took the pad out of his 
cab and put him on it with the pillows in front so he 
wouldn’t fall off. It got to be noon before Mrs. Carlson 
was aware of it, and the Kendalls came in. And the first 
thing they saw was the baby. When they went over to him 
he was kicking his feet and waving his arms about in jerky 
objectless gestures. They were both astonished to find him 
there. George put out his hand and the baby bit with 
little soft toothless gums onto his finger. It melted George 
into a substance resembling putty. He laughed and was 
more amused than he had been for months. 

“Look, Genevieve,” he said, “just look what he did. 
Held right on to my hand, strong as a little ox. Bit too, the — 
little nut! Isn’t he cute? And see...” 

Genevieve was starting to the door. But already Mrs. 
Carlson was running down the hall. When she saw Gene- 
vieve’s face she apologized: | 

“I’m sorry if he boddered you, Mrs. Kendall. I left him 
in dere wile I did de rest of de work.” 

Genevieve, without words for the effrontery of the work- 
ing woman, merely stood indifferently by while the mother 
got her baby. George wanted to smooth it over. “He’s a 
dandy, Mrs. Carlson. Sturdiest little kid I’ve seen in a 
long time. Give you a month’s salary for him any time 
you say the word.” 

Mrs. Carlson smiled at him. All the way down the hall 
she hugged her husky little son to her breast and kissed 


wi’ 


154 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


him. “S’e didn’t like you, darlin’. It’s a good ting you 
belong to me instead of her.” 

In the room Genevieve turned to the glass of the dresser 
. to powder for lunch. George went into the bathroom to 
wash and with infinite pains slammed the door. 


ae, 


CHAPTER XVI 
MR. RINELAND DREAMS 
QO: Friday afternoon of that same week O. J. Rine- 


land sat in his private office with two customers: 

Major Slack and Nick Denning. The Major was 
pompous, well groomed. Nick Denning was neither. He 
was slouchy, unshaven. His hat was on his head. And 
where else should it have been, Nick would have asked, 
if pressed. 

Mr. Rineland’s office was small, simply furnished with 
one large desk and a smaller one for the typewriter, some 
chairs, and a filing case. A shelf of books completed the 
plain appointments. 

Neo one is capable of measuring the influence on a com- 
munity of a man like Mr. Rineland. Placed as he is with 
his hand on the financial pulse of the people, his position 


_is one of physician to their various businesses. He is alse 


a combination .of teacher, preacher, lawyer. There are 
those who look upon the small-town banker as a hard man, 
grasping, extorting, squeezing blood from turnips. It is 
a favorite indoor sport of fiction writers to picture him 
as a Shylock, whetting his knife behind the grated window. 
The country banker is a high-type man, calm, level-headed, 
just. Where one goes wrong, a hundred stay right. When 
the money market is stringent, his nerves are taut from 


‘steering his bark safely through the troubled waters. When 


money is plentiful and his customers go off their heads 


with the alluring beckoning of wild-cat schemes, his nerves 


155 


(156 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


are still taut from making of himself the stabilizer in 
their financial aeronautics. 

In war time when the Maple City farmers were flushed 
with the big money from their crop returns, Mr. Rineland, 
in his back office, had talked and explained to them, even 
pleaded with them to play safe. Some took his advice. 
Some pretended to and went out and secretly purchased 
a little blue sky. Some openly told him to watch them get 
rich. And it is proof of his sterling character that when 
they came back to him, beaten and chagrined, he looked 
upon them in sorrow rather than scorn, a little like a 
father who pitied his children. 

Nick Denning had taken Mr. Rineland’s advice. And 
now Nick had money when some of his neighbors had gilt- 
edged chromos lithographed in pretty colors. Nick was a 
good business man. As far as cleanliness was concerned 
he may not have been very close to godliness, but he was 
hard-headed, and a hard head maketh a merry income. Just 
now he was doing the talking. 

“You use your influence with the old man, Mr. Rine- 
land,” he was saying. “My boy Carl wants to get married 
in the spring and we want him on the Moore place. Old 
jud thinks your advice is mighty good. He'll pay attention 
to what you say.” 


“T’ll talk to him,” Mr. Rineland agreed, “but I can’t do — 


any coercing. It’s his and he'll do as he thinks best. Per- 
sonally, I think it time for them to come into town and 
rest. They’ve been hard workers and Jud’s breaking. Any 
one can see it. I’ll do what I can.” Mr. Rineland moved 
his desk chair a little as though the interview were over, 
but the men lingered. Nick Denning settled back in his 
own chair and went all over the situation again. Mr. Rine- 


land listened attentively to the tiresome reiteration. It is | 


another characteristic of a country banker . . . patience, 


MR. RINELAND DREAMS Ay 


A city banker may handle a thing snappily. But there is 
no snap in the conversation of the average farmer customer. 
If country bankers charged for their time they would be 
wealthy beyond their pleasantest dreams. 

So it was late in the afternoon when Warner Field tapped 
at the door and opened it. “Mrs. Rineland and Alice have 
asked me to call you, Mr. Rineland. They’re here with 
the car and want to know how soon you will be ready 
to go.” 

The men rose. Nick Denning may have been as thick- 
skinned as he was hard-headed, but the Major knew the 
amenities. 

Alice and Mrs. Rineland were standing in the lobby of 
the bank. Alice looked pretty and polished to the nth 
degree. Mrs. Rineland looked like a painted old scare- 
crow, but to her husband, always loyal to his own, she 
was “Mama,” and that was enough. 

Every one was leaving . . . Marty Spencer and the 
cashier and the paying teller. 

“We'll take you up, Warner,” Alice’s voice was soft, 
clinging. 

Marty Spencer dug his elbow suggestively and painfully 
into the paying teller’s none-too-cushioned ribs. “Cleopatra 
beckons her Antony,” he whispered through closed teeth. 

“Let’s all drive out to the Moore farm,” Mr. Rineland 
suggested. “I want to see Jud Moore, and there’s plenty 
of time before dinner.” 

Warner hesitated. He had planned to go right to his 
story the minute he got home and he begrudged the time for 
the drive. And he could not seem to get up any enthusiasm 
over driving to the Moores’ with Alice. 

Little green lights penciled themselves in Alice’s lowered 
‘eyes. But when she raised them, they were gray-blue and 
guileless. “Will you, Warner?” 


158 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“Why, yes, I can.” After all, the Rinelands were the 
best friends he had in Maple City. 

Out in front Alice took the wheel and made room for 
him beside her. On the bank steps Marty Spencer chuckled 
to the paying teller: “Nice little family party. But I’m 
betting now on the little sassy eye-knocker at the ‘Bee- 
House.’ ” 

So the Rinelands and Warner drove in the shining sedan 
down Main Street, out across the railroad tracks, past the 
creamery, past the Carlson and Swanson houses and out on 
the road east of town between the cottonwoods and the 
Lombardys. Alice drove well. She handled her car af 
dexterously as she handled her baby-grand. 

Mr. Rineland enjoyed the drive. He was contented. 
Mama and Alice and Warner! He liked to have Warner 
with Alice. Warner was clean and courteous and sincere. 
And he liked the country. How he liked the country this 
October afternoon! “Look at the corn, folks! Doesn’t 
that satisfy the eye, though? They’ll be going into the 
field next week. I tell you, you’d appreciate it if you had 
seen it like I have in the old days, stripped to the stalk, 
standing like so many skeletons on both sides of the road. 
Everybody discouraged. No money in sight. All of us in 
the same boat, bankers as scared and discouraged as the 
farmers.” 

Alice did not like the inference. “Oh, Papa!” She 
smiled at him over her shoulder. “I guess you weren’t as 
bad off as all that.” 

“Wasn’t I, though? Indeed I was, my dear, with the 
crops for security and crops failing on all sides.” Mr. 
Rineland talked on reminiscently. But Mrs. Rineland did 
not say much. She never did. She had a little smile that 
usually rested on the elaborate make-up of her thin face, 
It was somewhat superior and somewhat knowing, as though 


MR. RINELAND DREAMS 159 


she were secreting many things that were best not told. It 
was what gave Warner an intuitive dislike for her and for 
which thought he often reviled himself. 

“Are we going this fall to the County Bankers’ Conven- 
tion, Papa?” Alice was wanting to know. 

“Why, yes, I have to be there. Sure, we'll all go. That 
will make a fine drive too . . . down south through the 
hills to Postville. I haven’t taken that drive for years. We 
can all go. You, too, Warner. We’ll have an early lunch 
and start at twelve-thirty or one o’clock, so we can be 
there by the time the afternoon program begins. That will 
be a nice drive. That’s Columbus Day, the twelfth. It’s 
_ next Tuesday, with the bank closed.” 

“You'll go, Warner?” Alice’s blue eyes plead. 

_ He did not want to make the promise. He wanted the 
day at his desk. Already he was so wrapped in his story 
that he seemed to be living it constantly. 

“Of course Warner will go,” Mr. Rineland put in. “It’s 
essential to meet the other bankers of the county. We're 
not any of us independent, you know. And that question 
of interest is coming up. It will be a good thing for you to 
hear the speeches and I’d like to have you take part in - 
the informal discussion of it.” _ 

There was nothing to do, of course, but acquiesce. He 
was an employee and as such obeyed orders like any good 
hired man. But he was disappointed. 

As they passed the Thomas farm they could see white 
wood smoke pouring out of the kitchen chimney. Warner 
knew that Mattie was starting the fire, preparatory to cook- 
ing a huge supper. At the Lombardy poplars the car came 
up to and passed a rattling buckboard. Old Jud Moore, 
_ taking Nancy home at the week’s end, turned out to the 
right with, “Gol durn it! If they’d all go by at once 
instead o’ one every few rods.” 


160 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


The sedan drove into the lane road behind the cotton- 
woods. “Old Mrs. Moore has been our butter woman for 
years,” Alice told Warner. People outside of Alice’s set 
were not personalities to her. They were sae butter 
woman, “the wash woman,” “the seamstress,” not “Hesh 
and blood creatures, but machines that did their work auto- 
matically. 

The “‘butter woman,” on her crutch, came out of the old 
square farmhouse now, the late afternoon sun shining on 
her placid face and her soft white hair. She was hospitable. 
She wanted Alice and her mother to get out and come in. 
But they said no, it was Papa who was there for a short 


99 


time on business. 

The rattling buckboard came into the lane road and 
Nancy hopped out. Uncle Jud unfolded his long camel-like 
legs and got out, too, a little painfully. 

Mr. Rineland went up to the porch with the old folks to 
talk to them. The others stayed by the big car. Nancy 
had that old sensation she had always felt in the presence 
of Alice and her mother, the knowledge of a condescension 
from them that she had sensed ever since she was little. It 
exasperated her but she could not combat it. They were 
always cool and poised, and Nancy, hot tempered and emo- 
tional, could never rid herself of the feeling that she would 
like to fly at them, and break through that hard snobbish 
exterior. 

She did her best now with the conversation. Warner 
seemed to be helping her and she was grateful to him but 
it was not a startling success. 

“Do you like your teaching?” It was as though Alice, 
from her heights of leisure, had asked, “Do you like bi. 
chloride of mercury?” 

“Why, yes . . . it’s work, of course, but it’s very en: 
joyable.” 


MR. RINELAND DREAMS 161 


“You were lucky to get in here without experience.” Mrs. 
Rineland’s beadlike eyes darted from Nancy to Alice. 

Nancy shrugged one lithe shoulder. 

“I guess [was just born that way . . . lucky.” She had 
that same wild desire to tell them at once of her 
unannounced engagement to Mr. Farnsworth, whose wealth 
and position were known even to Maple City, so that she 
might see their surprise and chagrin. She hated herself 
for the feeling, but wealth was the only weapon that could 
penetrate their particular kind of skin. With that same 
sense of unholy glee she knew that if she kept the news 
of it to herself, until she was leaving in the spring, she 
would be repaid tenfold. All year to swallow the conde- 
scending remarks, to take all their little snobbish airs 
meekly and then to experience that high moment of mirth- 
provoking laughter in which she was to spring her engage- 
ment. It gave her back her own poise, that knowledge of 
the upper hand she was to hold in the spring. It made her 
gay again and careless of what she said so that Warner, 
grave and serious, watching her, saw that same mood come 
upon her which he had learned to know . . . as though 
she were Babbie dancing wantonly through Caddam Wood 

. . Babbie, who was both gypsy and lady of high degree. 

Mr. Rineland was talking to Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny 
about the farm> “You’d better consider it, Jud. I think 
you owe it to yourself now and to your wife. It’s a good 
chance to sell.” 

“Tt’s Denning, ain’t it, that wants it?” 

“Yes, it’s Denning.” Mr. Rineland did not like dissimu- 
lation. | 

“No, I ain’t goin’ to sell,” old Jud Moore finished the 
_ interview stubbornly. 

“That’s all right. I told Major Slack I’d talk it over with 

you. But you know best.” Mr. Rineland had not dealt 


— 162 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


with old Jud Moore for nearly a half century without gain- 
ing definite insight into his character. 

After the Rinelands had gone, Jud Moore, like a rubber. 
band snapping back after being drawn taut, began taking 
the other side of the question in his own mind. And, as he 
could not carry anything long in his thoughts without shar- 
ing it with Aunt Biny, he voiced it to her after supper. 

“Might consider shige and goin’ to Californy if you 
warn’t so set ag’in’ it.” 

Aunt Biny smiled surreptitiously at Napcys who shinned 
back knowingly. ¥ 

“Well, you do as you think best} Pa.” 

The first of the next week Jud Moore went into the field. 
In the mid-west the expression, “going into the field,” has 
specific reference to the great events on a farm, the spring 
planting, the summer wheat harvesting and the husking. 
Old Jud rode into his cornfields in the early morning. 
The dried and brittle stalks rubbed noisily against the 
wagon. The huge ears fell with dull thud in the high box 

. but slowly, more slowly than in other years. More 
slowly than those which Walt Thomas, a quarter of a mile 
away, threw into the high box of his wagon. Walt worked 


quickly and steadily, brown, alert, a perfect figure of 


healthy young manhood . . . Apollo in a cornfield!” As 
he worked he was thinking many things, how pretty the 
clouds were in that long white row like sheep going over 


a blue hill. How far away they seemed . . . like so many 
things one wanted and could not have. It made him de- 
pressed . . . that old longing for Nancy. But by noon, 


when he went to the house and had eaten his mother’s’ 
good dinner, he experienced boyish lightness-of -heart. 
After all life was good. And who knew, sisi was 
a girl somewhere to take Nancy’s place. 


And over in town the boarders, too, had just finis ‘ed 


MR. RINELAND DREAMS 163 


their lunch and were out on the wide porch of the old 
“Bee-House” in the summer warmth of the October noon. 

Nancy was there, perched on the edge of the railing like 
a gay little linnet. Warner, grave and serious, and Marty 
Spencer, light-hearted and debonair, were standing near her. 
Major Slack was there, stuffed to a state of torpidity. Mary 
Mae Gates was there, discussing a musical date she had at 
one-thirty. “My interpretation of “The Willow Song’ is 
somewhat different from Madam Alda’s,” she was saying. 

“Oh, is that.so?” Nancy remarked in a pleasant aside 
to Warner and Marty. go doubt Verdi sent word back to 
Mary Mae how he a her to do it.” 

The Kendalls were there but their domestic temperatures 
had dropped again, and so far as Genevieve was concerned, 
her mercurial affection hovered around the degree that is 
named indifference. Dr. Pearson and Helen Blakely sat 
close together on the steps, where the word “Baldwin” was 
picked out in colored stones. 

Miss Gunn was on one of the corde seats, methodically 
taking her noon rest, eyeing her wrist watch to see that she 
ceased resting at the exact moment of her allotted time. 

The “bore” stood with his back against the red brick of | 
the.wall, smiling and scraping foolishly and darting his 
head around to catch what every one was saying. 

Miss Rilla had followed the boarders out on the wide 
porch. She enjoyed the chatter and the bits of news. Miss 
Ann had no such childish moments. Life was real and life 
was,earnest to Miss Ann, and so far as she was concerned 
e grave was not such a bad goal. 

x Marty Spencer nudged Nancy now with his elbow and 
_ received a frigid look for his ill-timed gesture. It did not 
_ feeze Marty. “Looky,” nA pointed one wiggling thumb 
oward the two enscoriced together on the top step and 
another toward the Kendalls. “Before taking,” he whis- 


+164 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


pered, “and after. Not for Marty, then . . . the gay 
wedding march and the dread hangman’s noose.” 

The Rinelands, starting for the county bankers’ conven- 
tion at Postville, drew up in front for Warner. The sedan 
was shining and spotless. Alice was at the wheel. — 

When Warner had gone down to the car, Marty nudged 
Nancy again with an active elbow and went unrebuked. 
“There’s the shadow of the next hangman’s noose! But not 
so bad . . . notso bad. . . the only child . . . the only 
heir . . . the First National Bank . . . some farm land 

. the Wop-house on the hill . . . and a beautiful old 
mother-in-law.” He went off into a spasm of laughter. 
Nancy did not join him. It was not so excruciatingly funny 
that a man like Warner Field was eventually to tie himself 
down to a small-souled, humorless creature like Alice Rine- 
land. 

Nancy joined Miss Gunn and together they walked down 
to the Whittier. A great discontent was upon her. She 
was angry with herself that she had taken the position 
. . . by far the silliest thing she had ever done. The warm 
October afternoon was not meant to be spent in a stuffy 
schoolroom with the Swansons and the Carlsons and the 
Bornheimers. It was meant to be spent. . . in a sedan 
out on a country road. She went up the front walk worn 
with the soles of a thousand feet, at complete variance with 
the whole world. 

The Rinelands and Warner spent the afternoon and eve- 
ning at the convention where the county bankers discussed 
a few little pleasing topics as the income tax law, excessive 
interest, the crop outlook, the guarantee fund and a county 
clearing house. There was an evening banquet of home 
cooking served by the Postville ladies in the American ~ 
Legion hall and afterward the choice of a movie show or 
dancing with the bankers’ wives and daughters. From 


MR. RINELAND DREAMS 165 


which statement one may deduct what a gay, wild fellow 
the mid-west banker is when he is off on his semi-annual 
convention spree. 

Warner and Alice danced. Alice danced as well as she 
did everything else. Yes, Alice Rineland was almost 
perfect. 

It was midnight when the sedan turned into the asphalt 
drive toward its garage. Mr. Rineland did not feel sleepy 
after a coffee indulgence, so he went into his library and sat 
down in the big chair. Suddenly he got up and went over 
to his desk, unlocked a small drawer and, with hands that 
trembled a little, took from it two of his most cherished 
possessions: the picture of his first wife and his son. For 
a moment he looked at the old-fashioned picture of the 
woman and then placed it gently back. The young man’s 
picture he took with him over to the big chair and sat 
looking at it a long time. Only twenty, and the fresh young 
life had gone out in a flash! Full of life and vigor with 
a splendid career before him! A split rail . . . and there 
was no more vigor and no more life. The enormity of the 
grief overwhelmed the father again, as it so often did. He 
shook with the passion of it. He had no son. . . he had 
no son! 

For a time he sat there until the poignancy of the memory 
had passed. Well, one must make the best of life. And 
life had been good to him. It had given him Mama and 
Alice, he told himself loyally. He hoped that Alice would 
marry well . . . some one he, himself, liked, too. Warner 
Field, for instance. Warner was clean and courteous and 
sincere. Everybody respected him. Yes, he hoped it would 
be Warner. He put his head back in the big chair and 
thought of the possibilities of it. He saw himself older 

. retiring from active work . . . out of the bank... . 
free from the monotony of the day’s grind there but still 


166 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


keeping his eye on the business, advising and assisting. He 
could keep his old office and go to it whenever he wished. 
The young folks could live right at home with him and 
Mama .. . the house was big enough. Warner would 
work up easily to the head of the old bank . . . he was 
dependable in every way. And he, himself, would be free 
to drive away any day into the country among the farms 

. . to fish a little and hunt sometimes . . . to go back 
to the things he loved . . . the prairie and the hills . . . 
the orchards and the cottonwoods . . . the smell of the 
loam and the alfalfa fields. . . . | 

He pulled himself up suddenly. What had he been do- 
ing? Indulging in fancies over the realities of which he 
had no control. After all, young people had to work out 
their own destinies. But an old man . . . who had no- 
son... an old man could dream dreams, couldn’t he? 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE SINISTER THING STALKS 


Y November everybody in the “Bee-House” was call- 
ing everybody else by his first name. At least the 
younger people were doing so. One would as soon 

have thought of calling the Queen of England by her first 
name as addressing Miss Gunn as “Sarah.” 

The first half of the month was warm and cold, dry and 
rainy, uncertain in temperament. “A little of everything,” 
Nancy said to Warner, who was taking her out home, “like 
the lessons in my second grade. Since I’ve started to teach 
we've studied Hiawatha, the carpenter, goldenrod, corn, 
milkweed, ants, Longfellow, spiders, Columbus, the squir- 
rel, Thorwaldsen and the stars . . . everything, in fact, but 
bridge whist, child labor laws and evolution. The inside 
of the youngsters’ minds must look like a pawn shop or a 
junk pile.” 

Warner laughed. It was as easy as ever to laugh with 
Nancy. She never palled . . . never failed to hold his 
interest. The Friday was cold and sunless. When the two 
turned down the lane road at the farm, behind the cotton- 
woods, Aunt Biny already had the swinging lamp lighted 
in the kitchen. There was a savory smell of cooking and 
it took real courage for Warner to refuse Aunt Biny’s invi- 
tation to stay. | 

“Ts no use, Aunt Biny,” Nancy informed her, “the First 
National Bank can’t locate seventeen cents and they’ve all 


got to work this evening and find it.” 
167 


168 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


After Warner had gone back to town, Nancy ran out to 
the old harness shed where she could see Uncle Jud fussing 
around. He was getting down the muskrat traps, dragging 
their clanking chains noisily from the wall. 

“Goin’ to set ’em to-night. Season opens to-morrow, but 
I reckon settin’ *°em a few hours early won’t hurt if I post 
a notice up for the rats not to pay no attention to ’em until 
after midnight.” 

“T’ll go with you, Uncle Jud. It’s been ages since I did 
it. The crowd I chase around with doesn’t set muskrat 
traps. you know.” 

The little family of three ate supper together under the 
hanging lamp and immediately afterward Uncle Jud and 
Nancy set out with the traps. Nancy wore a long coat, a 


wool cap pulled down over her brown hair and a pair of | 


Aunt Biny’s homemade woolen gloves. It was cold and 
frosty. Uncle Jud carried over his shoulder a gunny-sack 
filled with traps and in the other hand the lantern that made 
a circling light in the dark of the orchard. Nancy chatted 
as she swung along beside the old man. It reminded him 
of when she was little. The years had turned back for him 
and she was not a mature young woman, but a little brown- 
headed thing chattering along by his side on the way to 
other muskrat expeditions. 

He wanted to tell her this, to let her know how glad he 
was that she was back; how sorry he was that she had left 
them; how he had missed her; how lonely were the creek 
and the orchard without her. But it would not come. 
Always when he opened his mouth to approach it, he be- 
came stupid and inarticulate. That’s the way he always 
was, he told himself . . . talked like a blue streak when 
there was nothing to say and was tongue-tied when he ought 
to be talking. 

As cold as it seemed in the November evening, Tinkling 


THE SINISTER THING STALKS 169 


Creek was not frozen. As they walked along its bank, they 
saw a long V-shaped rippling of the water slip downstream. 
In a moment they came upon them, the slides in the bank 
worn smooth by the tobogganing of the colony. Just under 
the water at the bottom of each, they set the evil-looking 
traps. Nancy set a few, herself, opening their iron jaws 
with her foot and staking them to the bank. 

When they had finished the task and returned to the 
house, the light and the warmth of the old sitting room 
enveloped their chilliness like a garment. Uncle Jud sat 
down with the Omaha paper in whose political policies he 
held implicit faith, 

Aunt Biny was setting the Bread. Nancy pied up in the 
chintz-covered chair to watch her. She liked the definite 
way Aunt Biny’s hands worked with the material. There 
was a certain fascination in watching her. When the bread 
was set in its pan and wrapped up in a patchwork quilt 
to keep it warm, Aunt Biny washed her hands and came 
limping over to a chair near the girl’s. 

“Nancy, I’ve been trying to get the courage to talk to 
you about something. You’re grown up and are your own 
boss, but some way . . . I can’t see you get so friendly 
with Warner Field when you’re a betrothed woman, without 
warning you about it. Somebody is certainly going to 
be hurt.” % 

Nancy flushed a little. “Just who is going to be hurt, 
Aunt Biny?” 

She meant it for slight sarcasm, but sarcasm had not been 
included in life’s curriculum for Aunt Biny. “That’s hard 
to tell, Nancy. Maybe Mr. Field. Maybe you. Most cer- 
_ tainly the man you're engaged to.” 

Nancy grinned. “It would take a whole lot more than 
- either a friendship or a flirtation, Aunt Biny, to hurt the 
man I’m engaged to. Warner Field is no doubt going to 


Pe st 


170 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


marry ‘the lily maid of Astelot,? named Alice Rineland, 
and me . . . I’m immune, I assure you.” 

Aunt Biny ran her hand nervously up and down the 
shining smoothness of the old crutch. It was hard to talk 
to Nancy. She was so glib and so modern. The things 
she said confused the older woman. “No. . . you ain't, 
Nancy . . . you ain’t immune, as you call it. You’ve 
never yet told me you love this Mr. Farnsworth and youd 
be glad and proud to tell me if you did. And if you’ve 
never known what real love is yet . . . youre. . . you're 
going to be hurt some day. And you owe it to the man not 
to have so much to do with Warner Field.” 

Nancy laughed outright. “If that isn’t provincial, ee 
Biny. Now, I’ll tell you something I never told you before. 
Mr. Farnsworth is one of Warner Field’s friends and 
Warner doesn’t even know that I know him. His son, Rod, 
and Warner were classmates in college and Warner has 
visited in their home many times in years gone by.” 

“His son, Nancy! Is he that old?” 

“Yes . . . he’s that old. You see, he’s the futhe of 
Fay F Giiwgeh: one of my best girl friends. I told you he 
was a lot older than the hero ought to be, but he has money 
to buy the pyramids. And I don’t want you to say anything 
about it to Warner. It’s my little joke and some day I'll 
tell him all about it. I even saw Warner once in their 
house . . . the last time he was ever there . . . and he 
doesn’t know that either. I was on the landing of the stairs 
with Fay Farnsworth and I looked down over the banisters 
and saw Warner just as he was leaving. He looked up and 
saw me leaning over the banisters, but he seemed serious 
and troubled and didn’t pay any more attention to me look- 
ing down at him than if I had been one of the spindles. 
I’ve always wanted to tell him about our friends in common 
and about seeing him that time, but I can’t do it without 


_ THE SINISTER THING STALKS Nee ae 


dragging in my engagement and I don’t want to do that.” 

“Why not?” 

If Nancy was a bit confused at the direct question she 
covered it with her elaborate explanation. 

“Well . . . you see, if you are going to be married, it 
is something like stepping off the dock in the dark . . . 
pretty vague and uncertain just how deep the water is 
. . . and I thought I’d sort of like to play around on the 
wharf a bit first. You’d rather I’d do that, wouldn’t you, 
than do like most of them . . . climb up the piling and 
play around just the same way afterwards?” 

“Oh, my dear!” | 

“Poor Aunt Biny! The world and the flesh and the 
devil . . . you do try to make yourself believe they don’t 
exist.” 

Aunt Biny ignored the pointed observation and again 
went straight to the thing on her mind: “You ought to 
tell Warner Field, now. It isn’t right to see so much of 
him. You’re doing a lot of people a wrong . . . Alice 
Rineland for one, if you think he wants to marry her.” 

“I don’t think he wants to but I think he’s going to. It’s 
the best thing for him, you’ll have to admit . . . with 
Mr. Rineland’s property.” 

“You're not looking at these things right, Nancy. You’re 
. . . I don’t know how to express it . . . only touching 
the surface of things. Real love is both proud and humble. 
It asks nothing and gives all. It’s like a growing thing 

. with roots. Deep, deep roots that draw their suste- 
nance from our very beings.” 

“Roots? All right, Aunt Biny, for the first time this 
evening, we agree heartily. ‘Roots,’ as the dictionary so 
ably states, “constitute a food reservoir or support for the 
growing plant.’ That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you 
all the time. . . . ‘A food reservoir or support’. . . the 


172 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


more money a man has the more food you get and the 
more support.” She went off into high bubbling laughter 
at Aunt Biny and finished it with a little demonstrative hug 
to take off the sting. 

So Aunt Biny’s loving counsel ended where so much 
loving counsel ends, in the place it started, with no one 
affected by it but herself. 

Nancy went to bed trying to be both blithe and uncon- 
cerned with apparently nothing more important on her mind 
than the fact that Uncle Jud was to call her very early. 
“For I’m to be queen of the traps, Uncle. [I’m to be queen 
of the traps,” had been her parting word to him. But 
she did not go to sleep. There were many things which 


disturbed her. 


It seemed in the middle of the night that Uncle Jud was’ 


rapping on the stovepipe below and calling her. It was 
frightfully early and dark. For a few moments she lay 
in the warm bed, regretting her promise. The thought of 
some of her friends seeing her crawl out at that uncanny 
hour and into her cold clothes tickled her so that she jumped 
out and lighted the hand lamp. But she picked up her 
clothes and carried them downstairs to dress behind the 
huge base-burner as she had done when she was little. 

Aunt Biny was already dressed and starting breakfast. 
When Uncle Jud and Nancy started out with the lantern, its 
eerie shadows swinging around them, the cold of the morn- 
ing seemed almost bitter. The old man did not walk nearly 
so fast or so springily, Nancy noticed, as he had in other 
years. He trudged along heavily like a machine-that was 
wearing. 

The first two traps they visited were empty. At the third 


one little bubbles of water formed the center of a circle of | 


ripples so that they knew the trap held something. Uncle 
Jud pulled out a big struggling muskrat, dripping with — 


i 


| 
: 


¥ 


THE SINISTER THING STALKS 173 


water, its wet fur giving no promise of the softness it would 


have when dried. He held the trap on the ground and hit 
the animal over the head with the blunt club that he 
carried. 

Nancy gave the elegy: “Poor little Musky! You’ll make 
some rich saleslady a mink coat or a sable neck-piece.” 
~ The iron jaws yielded nine pelts. Uncle Jud put them 
into the gunny-sack after he had reset the traps. “There’s 
something tragic about it, Uncle Jud. Life for just a 
summer or two. Life and freedom and animal happiness 
and in the end a clout over the head.” 

“Guess it amounts to the same with us,” the old man 


said, simply. “Life and freedom and happiness for a few 


summers and in the end a clout over the head.” 

It grew light. Great splashes of color were drawn across 
the east. In layers like a huge staff of music the harmoni- 
ous shades lay piled one above the other. God’s tubes 
were neither twisted nor dried that morning. 

The old man called Nancy’s attention to it. “Never saw 
it two times alike, and I’ve seen it every mornin’ since we 


- come to the state. Nature ain’t ever monotonous.” 


Uncle Jud seldom spoke in generalities. Life was a con- 
crete thing to him: wheat, weather, corn, taxes. They were 
tangible. But freedom, happiness, beauty . . . they were 
too vague and shadowy for him to discuss. Now that he 
had inadvertently fallen into a generality, Nancy took ad- 
vantage of it. 

“If you had your life to live over, what is there about 
it that you would change?” 

They were going toward home now, had reached the edge 
of the orchard. Uncle Jud shifted his gunny-sack to the 


’ other shoulder. 


“Don’t know’s I think of much. Onct I had a chance to 
buy the east eighty of Mattie’s whilst was cheap. Believe 


174, THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 
I’d do that now. Mebbe I’d build the barn on the northeast 


side o’ the house ’stead o’ the northwest.” 

Nancy smiled at the simplicity of his thoughts. “I mean 
big things, Uncle Jud . . . to make your whole life different. 
Would you be something besides a farmer? Do something 
entirely different with your life? Live some other place 
than Nebraska? Marry some other woman besides Aunt 
Biny?” 

Even the importance of the first questions was over- 
whelmed by the enormity of the last. 

He almost stopped in his tracks. “Lord A’mighty . . . 
your Aunt Biny was the only girl I ever . . . liked.” 
“Loved” was too big a mouthful. “Farmin’ is the only 
thing in the world I’d do. Nebraska’s the best state in 
the whole kit ’n bilin’ of ’em.” 


Nancy laughed. The only state, the only occupation, the 


only woman! Well, why wasn’t life as simple as that for 
every one? When you got old like Uncle Jud you could 
look back at your life as from a hilltop. But when you 
were young you went blindly as through dense thickets. 
She fell into silence for the rest of the way home. A moodi- 
ness and vague uncertainty annoyed and depressed her. 
Uncle Jud’s commonplace remarks were as something afar 
off. But when she opened the kitchen door, the odors of 
sausage, coffee and cakes were too humanly attractive to 
allow her momentary moodiness a chance to exist. 

The month slipped away. Life seemed to amuse Nancy. 
She laughed at every one and everything. She laughed 


at Miss Gunn’s dearth of humor and :her abundance of — 


and bowing and scraping foolishly when the ladies passed i 
by. She laughed at Major Slack with his pomposity and 
his bombasity and the ridiculously heavy statements with — 


statistics, at her partiality for proteids and her abhorrence 
of carbohydrates. She laughed at Ambrose Jones rising 


we 


i 


THE SINISTER THING STALKS 175 


which he settled all the great world problems. She laughed 
at Mary Mae Gates throatily practicing “Knowest Thou 
the Land?” on the old cracked and scuffed piano. She 
laughed at Marty Spencer’s immature idea of wit, at Miss 
Rilla’s emotional tears and at Miss Ann’s crabbedness. She 
laughed at the seriousness with which Helen Blakely and 
Dr. Pearson took their love affair and the seriousness 
with which the Kendalls took their unloved one. But she 
did not laugh at Warner Field. She laughed with him a 
great deal but not at him. Occasionally she slipped into a 
thoughtful mood in which she admitted that she ought to 

tell him about everything. Maybe she ought not to let him 
- come out after her on Sundays. Maybe she ought not to 
see so much of him. Maybe . . . but it ended in nothing 
but a half-formed resolution that faded off into nothing. 
Because she liked to be with him, they continued to drift 
together as naturally as the tides to the moon. Nancy 
Moore was a little too careless to face life as it should be 
faced. On the whole she felt very happy and free. Life 
was a pleasant thing . . . with youth and laughter and 
friends. 

‘And life to Warner Field had picked up. The monot- 
onous months when he first came to Maple City seemed ages 
before. The days were not long enough for all that he 
wished to accomplish. Always there was the story with 
him, a living vital thing being created. All day long in 
the bank his mind seemed to be divided into those two com- 
partments. In the one he did his bank work correctly. In 
the other he was conscious that his characters assembled, 
talked to each other, lived their lives, waited for him. He 
could scarcely wait to get back to the “Bee-House”’ to write. 
' The moment he got home in the afternoon he was at work. 
He muffled his machine with a thick pad, kept his door closed 
and worked constantly. When he would pick up his scat- 


176 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


tered pages to read and revise the tale, it sounded fresh and 
good. Saturday nights he never went to bed until toward 
dawn. Miss Ann complained more often about the amount 
of light he burned. “If he’s writing a book, as you seem to 
think you know from the pages on his desk,” she said sourly 
to Miss Rilla, “he can just pay me back for all this electricity 
if he ever sells it . . . not that those one-horse writers 
ever get enough to pay for electricity.” 

And then quite suddenly it was Thanksgiving time before 
any one was aware. School was out on Wednesday for the 
two days’ vacation. 

All the afternoon Warner’s roadster was parked by the 
bank, for he intended to take Nancy out home. Several 
things detained him so that it was late when he came out 
to get the car. Alice and her mother alighted from their - 
sedan at the same moment so that the three stood together on 
the curb. And then Nancy Moore came by. 

They all spoke. In one of those swift childish moods of 
mischievousness, from which Nancy had never freed her- 
self, she paused. At the sight of Alice, standing there by 
her shining car, so complacent, so perfect and so smug, 
Nancy, in the perversity of her nature, asked, “Has any one 
here seen Walt Thomas? . . . because I’m going to ride 
out home with him on a load of hogs.” 

Warner frowned. Why did Nancy say those things? 
And before Alice and her mother, who were such sticklers 
for the conventions. He wished she wouldn’t. Try as he 
would, he could not help but know that he was hee aie 
to feel responsible for Nancy’s actions. 

“I’m going to take you out,” he said, still frowning a 
little. 

“Qh, no, you’re not.” Nancy was airily cool. “I was 
brought up with pigs. I don’t mind them at all.” She 
smiled artlessly over at Alice, correct and aloof. 


thes 


ci 


THE SINISTER THING STALKS EY? 


Warner opened his car door. “I’m going to take you 
out,” he repeated. 

“No, thank you.” 

“Get in this car,” he ordered sternly. 

Nancy impishly threw Alice a languishing look that said 
many things, and with an exaggeration of mock fear fell 
into the seat. 

In the car she said, “Heavens, we sounded like George 
and Genevieve Kendall. Why did you do it?” 

Warner’s frown relaxed its hold. “I don’t know, do 
you?” 

“No.” And they both laughed. 

“Well . . . you saw for yourself?” Alice turned to her 
mother when they were back in the sedan. “What have I 
been telling you?” There were little green points in her 
eyes and her expression was neither sweet nor gentle. 

Mrs. Rineland’s small face with its elaborate make-up 
wrinkled to the extent of its possibilities into an odd little 
smile. There was shrewdness in it, a touch of cunning. 

“T could settle that young lady with Warner Field,” she 
announced. “The type of man heis. . . from the kind of 
family he is . . . with that streak of pride in it. It’s in 
him, too, you know . . . whether he thinks so or not. . . 
a pride that came from generations of Massachusetts people 
_ with years of English pride behind that. I’ve kept it from 
you, Alice, but . . . if she is really making a difference 
with Warner’s attitude to you, as you say . . . it’s your 
right now to have the information. She was your classmate 

. and I’ve always tried to shield you . . . to keep you 
from these things . . . but it’s yours now to use. You 


must be careful how you use it . . . not in any superior 
way, just a suggestion. Men are contrary creatures at 
times . . . you mustn’t.antagonize him... .” 


So on the way up Main Street, up the sloping asphalt 


+4 
9 


178 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


drive, she was telling her daughter a subtle stinging thing. 
And like many another intriguer, she told only a half-truth, 
half-truths quite often being more dangerous than whole 
lies, 

Uncle Jud, Aunt Biny and Nancy ate a noon Thanks- 
giving dinner with Mattie and Walt. Mattie’s table looked 
like the food exhibit table at the State Fair. Everything 
was very informal, both service and conversation. Aunt 
Biny half-bashfully read some verses that she “made up.” 
They were a little faulty as to meter and a little trite as to 
rhyme, but they came from the depths of a thankful heart. 
Uncle Jud, with much detail and much roaring laughter, 
recalled other Thanksgivings. Mattie bounced springily 
from kitcher to dining room with one savory dish after 


another. Nancy was Nancy, which is synonymous with. 


merry chatter and bubbling laughter. Walt drank in her 
beauty as one quaffs water. 

Warner ate a six o’clock dinner at the Rinelands’. There 
were a half dozen other guests, new friends of Mrs. Rine- 
land and Alice. Mr. Rineland was happy to have them all 
there. He enjoyed having people in his home. He wished 


—--. 


Mama and Alice had company in more often, There were _ 


a lot of people he would like to have for a meal and a long 


pleasant evening afterward in which they could talk over © 


the early days . . . some of the old settlers around in the 
community . .. but Mama didn’t seem to have time. It 


made him think of the old days now .. . the contrast 


between the beautifully appointed table ne those other 
ones. He spoke of it to them all. 


“My first Thanksgiving dinner here was eaten with Gus © 
Carlson’s father’s family in a one-roomed house right where — 


the creamery stands. I had been working for Judge Baldwin 


some then for a few months, taking care of his horses and 


husking for the settlers around. I earned seven dollars in 


THE SINISTER THING STALKS Li9 


cash that fall and had to take the rest of my pay in good 
wishes and corn.” 

Then he saw a little look on Alice’s face that made him 
stop suddenly. He had forgotten for the moment that 
Mama and Alice did not enjoy references like that. He 
could not quite understand it. What was there about one’s 
early hard days to embarrass one’s family? It hurt him 
a little, but then he should not be critical. If he could not 
quite comprehend their attitude toward his early years of 
labor in the new country, he ought to be fair about it and 
remember not to speak that way when they had guests. 

After dinner the little company all went into the living 
- room and Alice played for them: Thoéne’s “Simple Aveu”’ 
and Chopin’s “Nocturne.” When she had finished she went 
over and sat down on the mulberry davenport where her 
pale prettiness stood out cameolike. To Warner she looked 
sweet and womanly, even a little melancholy and wistful. 
He walked over and sat down beside her. 

“You play beautifully, Alice.” 

“I’m glad you think so, Warner.” 

He was going to say something more about it when one 
of the guests, in a voice that included them all, asked if 
every one had heard of the recent arrest for a burglary 
crime of a young boy from Maple City’s one outstanding 
trashy family across the creek. There was a little discussion 
of the local happening. 

Warner said, quietly, “Well, blood isn’t everything, per- 
haps, but it’s apparently very essential that children should 
_ be rightly born.” 

The green light came into Alice’s eyes. She had not 
dreamed that luck would play into her hands so quickly and 
-so easily. She was breathing fast and trembling a little. 
She touched Warner’s arm gently and dropped her eyes. 
“You ask ...” she steadied herself. Then she raised her 


~ 180 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


eyes slowly to Warner and they were soft and blue. “You 
ask Nancy ...” she was smiling lightly, “ .. . some. 
time . . . just ask Nancy Moore what she thinks about 
that . . . and where she keeps the brown shawl?” 

It seemed to Warner that he could not look away from 
Alice. She knew something about Nancy, then . . . the 
sinister thing that had stalked along beside his friendship 
for her... the thing in the diaries that he had so 


brazenly read! 


sar 


CHAPTER XVIII 
NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY 
D ECEMBER came in with no winterlike mien. It was 


mild, cloudy and damp . . . uninteresting weather. 
The elms and maples, gaunt and unlovely, unless 
one loved their huge bare strength as Nancy did, stood in 
the old “Bee-House” yard like men stripped for the 
Olympics. 

No sooner had the month arrived than Nancy plunged 
deep into preparation for Christmas down at the Whittier. 
She almost swam through a sea of fat Santa Clauses and 
skinny reindeer. In the second grade, balsam and fir 
boughs lined the upper part of the boards, shadow cuttings 
of the wise men on stork-legged camels strode along one 
side of the room, and the star of Bethlehem hung a little 
tipsily from the ceiling. Nancy talked a great deal about 
the coming event at the “Bee-House” table. One evening 
at dinner it brought on a discussion concerning the ethics 
of the Santa Claus myth. Major Slack hurled the definite 
statement into the air: | 

“It is children’s first lesson in untruth.” 

“T’ve often observed,” Nancy remarked pointedly, “that 
people who are careless of facts in every other particular, 
quite suddenly develop a deep sense of righteousness over 
that special question.” 

With moist eyes Miss Rilla said, “I know of no sight so 
beautiful as children at Christmas time.” 

161 


ae Pa THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


With a well-bred snort Miss Ann contributed, “I know 
of no sight so foolish as the emotion displayed during the 
holidays.” 

Miss Gunn came in with her statistical contribution, 
“More money is spent for holiday gifts than on educational 
matters.” 

Marty Spencer told a story about a kid waiting up for 
Santa Claus. “Pretty good ... what?” 

Mary Mae Gates said, with husky, fatigued voice, 
“Between my music lessons and getting the church music 
ready, I’m nearly beside myself. The choir is putting on a 
cantata. I have so many solo parts, the whole thing seems 
to hinge on me.” 

The “bore,” smiling foolishly, turned his head hurriedly 
this way and that to catch every word that was said. 


Genevieve and George Kendall did not enter into the — 


conversation. They had had words in their room. George’s 
mother had written, asking them to spend Christmas with 
her.. George wanted to go but Genevieve had said she guessed 
not when they were invited to the Rinelands’ for a six o’clock 


Christmas dinner. It wasn’t everybody in town that got so 


special an invitation to the Rineland home and she guessed 
his mother could get along once without them. “But mother’s 


old and she’s not well and she’s expecting us,” he had ~ 


argued with her. 

“She'll be a year older next year and she’s thought she 
was an invalid ever since I knew her, and the Rine- 
lands are expecting us,” Genevieve had announced com: 
placently. 

George had ground his teeth. She was so wa and so 
stubborn and so susceptible to the unimportance of the two- 
by-four society of Maple City. 


Essie, serving the dessert, well knew what eres i: 
would bring to her: two extra courses of dishes, for there — 


eo. 


NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY 183 


would be some of the boarders staying on at the “Bee- 
House.” Christmas would be something of a farce for 
Essie unless she could go down home for the day. 

But Nancy was saying in her breezy way: “I have a plan. 
It just sprang out of my forehead full-fledged like Diana 
or Minerva or one of those dames . . . wouldn’t all of you 
that are to stay here at the ‘Bee-House’ like to come out to 
the farm for dinner? I mean you, too, Miss Ann and 
Miss Rilla. Close up shop for a day and come out to our 
house? Dr. Pearson is going out to Helen Blakely’s if 
Grandma Carlson’s heart doesn’t get to jazzing or the Swan- 
son baby doesn’t swallow a door knob or the mouth organ. 
Marty, here, has been invited by all of his girls to visit 
them. George and Genevieve are moving with the super- 
élite at the Rinelands’. But here’s Major Slack, and Miss 
Gunn and Mr. Jones and Miss Ann and Miss Rilla and 
Essie and Warner Field, who could come out. Mattie 
Thomas and Aunt Biny will get the dinner together and 
what Mattie won’t think of to cook just isn’t in the eleven 
cook books that she possesses. And Aunt Biny has peach 
pickles and cucumber pickles and tomato pickles and apple 
pickles and watermelon pickles. . . . She pickles everything 
but gourds and acorns.” 

“T think it would be fine.” The tears welled into Miss 
Rilla’s eyes. How she clutched at happiness! It was so 
fleeting, so transient! To Miss Ann there was not even 
fleeting happiness . . . only duty and stern realities. “The 
rest of you can go. There are a few little essential things’ 
like looking after fires in winter that always tie some mem- 
ber of the family down.” 

After dinner Warner came up to Nancy in the big hall. 
“That was thoughtful and kind of you, Nancy.” Whatever 
Nancy’s secret . . . whatever had happened when she was 
eighteen . . . she was everything that was charming and 


184 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE © 


lovable now. Alice’s innuendo had worried him not a 
little. There was no mistaking its suggestion. But when 
he was with Nancy, it faded into the background, a mere 
nothing that Nancy could blow ‘away with one bubbling 
laugh. 

“Warner, do you know things aren’t divided right in this 
world? All the jolly ones . . . the ones that always have 
a good time ... have some place to go for Christmas. 
The others haven’t. I guess Aunt Biny is right when she 
says ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ I’m asking you 
early before Alice clutches upon you for there simply has to 
be somebody there besides the antiques.” . 

“They have already asked me . . . but it was Mr. Rine- 
land. I’m pretty sorry, Nancy.” 

It did not disconcert her. “Dinner at night, of course, 
you mean?” 

“YES, © 

“Oh, that’s easy,” she laughed. “You ought to know by 
this time that dinner at our house is when the sun is at the 
meridian. You can eat on our plain painted table at noon 
and then at night you can dine from an Italian Renaissance 
table and sit in a golden chair and gaze at the beautiful 
daughter with tresses of comet’s hair.” There was no envy in 
her voice, nothing but banter. , 

With all her bustling preparations for Christmas, Nancy 
still took time to make the round of calls again among her 
pupils. 

At the Bornheimers’ she found a condition not to her 
liking. The thin little house looked more frail than ever. 
The fire was small. Not one of them looked comfortably 
dressed. Freddy gained too slowly. She must talk to Dr. 
Pearson about him, she told herself. | 

“Does he have plenty of fresh eggs and milk?” she 
wanted to know. i | 


NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY 185 


Mrs. Bornheimer’s expression made Nancy angry at hers 
self for her bluntness. 

“T’m going to see that he gets more, Mrs. Bornheimer. 
You'll let me, I know. We’ll bring him in some from Uncle 
Jud’s every Sunday afternoon. Maybe we can find a way 
to get extra milk from out there again in the middle of the 
week. Walt Thomas would bring it in or Mr. Field at the 
“‘Bee-House’ would get it, if I asked him.” 

“TI thought he was Alice Rineland’s beau.” 

Nancy laughed. “I guess he is . . . but he’s my friend, 
and you know a friend is sometimes more useful than a 
‘beau.’ ” 

She talked to the boys about the Christmas tree she was 
planning at the schoolhouse. ‘Freddy must be well enough 
to come too, by that time. Ill have somebody get him... 
Dr. Pearson, maybe ...or Mr. Field . .. unless you 
think we have to get permission from Alice Rineland,” she 
laughed. 

At the Swansons’ the general scrap heap appearance of 
the house on her former visits was augmented now by the 
presence of the stove, around which there were divers chunks 
of coal and ashes, feathery wisps of dust, burned matches, 
dirty dishes and spools of thread. The next-to-the-smallest 
baby was eating the pink wax coating of an ancient looking 
birthday candle. 

_ Mrs. Swanson, extremely healthy as to body, but with an 
air that one might look for her expiration at any moment, 
let the teacher in. With her usual vivacity Nancy turned 
her conversation toward the coming Christmas and the good 
time she hoped the children would have. There was no 
answering spark of mental fire from the lethargic woman. 
Yes, she knew Christmas was coming. Her tone implied that 
the end of the world was also on its way, and there was 
as little use of getting up any excitement over the one as 


186 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


the other. Mrs. Swanson’s mind, it seemed, while declining 
to exert itself unduly, clung as tenaciously to the subject of 
the Carlsons as one of her own Rhode Island Reds clung 
on occasion to its roost. 

“Well, they’re at it again,” she said nasally to Nancy. 
“Chasin’ *°em back home mornin’, noon and night.” With 
no explanatory subject and a nameless object in the sen- 
tence, Nancy knew neighborhood gossip well enough by 
this time to supply the missing ideas. “Nothin’ in the garden 
anywheres to hurt . . . not a leaf over there to eat... 
and them a-chasin’ and shooin’ like my Rhode Island Reds 
was rep-iiles.” 

Jim Swanson slipped in from the kitchen, as though his 
cue had been called. “Myrt’s right. You can hear that 
‘shoo . . . shoo’ most any time you want to listen. Some 
folks does like to make a molehill out of a mountain.” 

Nancy’s nostrils quivered at the inverted metaphor, but 
she kept her face straight. 

“Well, all come to the Christmas tree!” She was leaving 
as quickly as possible. 

“If I ain’t there,” Mrs. Swanson emitted languidly, “it 
will be because I got so much put on me to do.” 

“If you ain’t there,” Nancy said to herself, as she went 
down the muddy steps, “it will be because you need new 
cylinders and a spark plug.” 

It was a relief to run into the Carlsons’, where things 
were fresh and clean and wholesome. 

“It tries my patience trough and t’rough,” Mrs. Carlson 
told Nancy. “Their chickens muddy’n up the walks and 
as as ‘ tell Gus if we had any spunk we’d get de law 
on ’em.’ 

It was late and Nancy’s call was brief. 

“Well, all come to the Christmas tree!” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for anyt’ing. Every kid I got will 


NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY 18? 


be dere. I tell Gus dey’re just young once and when dey 
get big, I want ’em to remember dey had a lot o’ fun too, 
even if dey did have to work . . . and den de work ain’t 
hurtin’ ’em.” 

When Nancy returned to the “Bee-House,” dinner was 
nearly ready. The warmth and an appetizing odor greeted 
her cheerfully. How pleasant the “Bee-House” was and how 
thrilling it was to be young and healthy and enthusiastic. 

The “bore” stood by the table which contained the after- 
noon’s mail, but when Nancy came up he stepped aside and, 
backing against the wall, bowed and scraped and smiled 

foolishly. 3 
“YT think it may sleet a little before night. Do you not 
think so too?” 

“It’s quite, quite possible,” she agreed dramatically, and 
picked out her mail . . . a large envelope, directed in a 
businesslike hand. 

In her room, she threw her wraps aside and opened the 
letter. As one’s eyes go immediately to important things, 
she took in the text of it at a glance: 

. “so I think I can arrange to run out for about three 
days ... Christmas ... two days after ... isn’t con- 
venient for your Uncle and Aunt .. . at the hotel... .” 
Oh, no...no... not that! Not here... not in 
Maple City . . . nor out at the farm! Not to spoil her 
plans for Christmas. Spoil them? What was she saying? 
She stopped in amazement, appalled at the chaotic jumble 
of her thoughts. Mechanically she walked over to the 
window seat in the tower corner of the room and sat down, 
the disturbing message falling into her lap. Something must 
be done to stop his coming. He wouldn’t enjoy himself. 
He wouldn’t mix with Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny and the 
plain old farmhouse any more than oil and water mix. They 
lived in two worlds. When school was finished she would 


1838 | THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


go back to that other world where everything was gay and 
pleasure loving. She fitted in there easily, as easily as she 
fitted in here, but they just didn’t mix. She took the letter 
in her hand again. Why, her months of freedom were 
scarcely half over. She didn’t want him to come now... 
not yel.... 

“Why not?” She could hear Aunt Biny’s voice, clear and 
honest. 

She looked away from the letter, down at the old trees 
in the “Bee-House” yard, the elms and the maples, stripped 
and gaunt. They looked stupid and uncaring. A quick 
flash of tears swept her eyes. She felt small and childish. 
She wanted to take her disappointment to some one as a 
child does. Warner Field, big and clean-cut and substantial, 
was coming up the “Bee-House” walk and looking up toward 
the tower room. Suddenly she wished she could tell Warner 
Field about it. Warner would understand. When he saw her 
he waved his hat boyishly. Nancy smiled through her tears 
and waved her hand .. . the hand with the disconcerting 
letter in it. 7 

Christmas was to be on Saturday. Contrary to usual cus- 
tom, school was closing on Friday for only one week. Ail 
the school programs were on Friday afternoon, all but the 
Whittier, which was to be in the evening. “It’s Nancy 
Moore’s doings,” Miss Gunn said. “I think I’ve let her wind 
me around her finger. She said it would be nicer at night 
and the fathers could come too, as well as the mothers. She 
thought the fathers needed to come as much as anybody. 
I’m sure I’d rather have the commotion in the afternoon and 
get it over.” Enthusiasm varies inversely with the number of 
years one has taught. 

Nancy, herself, was less enthusiastic about the coming 
event than formerly. It made such an incongruous picture, 
Mr. Farnsworth being entertained on Christmas Eve by the 


NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY 189 


various Swansons and Carlsons, and eating Christmas dinner 
with Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny, Mattie and Walt and the 
tag-ends of the boarders. There was something wrong in the 
scheme of things. Over and over she assured herself that 
it was because she was in a different environment; that 
when she went back everything would be all right. 

And then, quite suddenly, before she had told any one 
but Aunt Biny that he was coming, Nancy heard from him 
that he could not come at all. She had the sensation of one 
who is being pulled hard with a rope and is suddenly let 
down. She was ashamed at her-feeling of relief and took 

infinite pains to conceal it from Aunt Biny. 

On the morning before Christmas there was something in- 
describable in the air. At breakfast Warner could see it in 
other people but he, himself, could not feel it. As he 
walked to the bank he was thinking how queer it was that 
you couldn’t respond to the Christmas thrill when you got 
older. He had been as crazy about it as any one when he 
was a kid. The swift vision of their pleasant home in 
Omaha reeled itself into his mind like a moving picture. 

Father, knobby with bundles, trying to slip in unnoticed, 
Mother interested and enthusiastic, putting the last touches to 
the table. Eleanor, although much older, as full of girlish 
excitement as he. There was the smell of food,'the stolen 
glimpses of the tree . .. stockings ... fun... excite- 
ment. It had been long ago... all of it. Times were 
different now. The entire world had slumped some way. 
Life seemed one long grief with only flashes of the old 
spirit. He thought of his book. Having worked too hard on 
it, he was having a period of depression about it. Born in 
enthusiasm, it was dragging a little. He wondered if it 
was as good as he had thought at first. If his publishers did 
not like it, he was through. 

His mind wandered to world conditions. There was seeth- 


190 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


ing unrest in the labor unions. The farmers had not alto- 
gether pulled out of their state of depression. Business, 
while more confident, was just getting on its feet after a 
staggering blow. There were foreign troubles. Crime was 
rampant . .. immorality common. Christmas! After all 
it seemed a travesty to go through with it. Gifts... 
candles . . . the babe-in-the-manger-story . . . the mockery 
of “peace on earth”! Why didn’t humanity ditch the whole 
thing and not go through with the dishonest farce? 

He opened the heavy swinging door of the bank and went 
in. Marty Spencer looked up. “Well,” he said jauntily, 
“*Twas the day before Christmas and all through the bank, 
not a creature was stirring, not even the crank.” He was 
light-hearted, debonair. He put a wreath in each window, 
stuck a sprig of holly in his buttonhole, another in the pen-. 
holder and made a facetious crack about hanging mistletoe 
over the paying-window before the teachers came in with 
their salary checks. 

There were a hundred routine duties. A constant stream 
of the community folk flowed in and out of the big re- 
volving doors. Warner was uniformly courteous, habitually 
pleasant. It was one of his assets. So he spoke blithely 
about Christmas to each customer although there was not 
much genuine Christmas feeling in his heart: “Expecting 
your son home to-night, Mrs. Miller?” or, “By George, 
Mr. Denning, I’d retire and come to town if I’d sold seven 
turkeys like you have.” But that inner feeling of 
generosity ..,. peace... the thrill . . . would not come. 
He was as callous and unfeeling toward the holiday spirit 
as the adding-machine. 

By noon there were a few snowflakes, fat, feathery, lazy. 
Nancy blew in to the “Bee-House” lunch with her eyes 
sparkling. “I ordered the snow,” she announced. “I’ve 
prayed every day: ‘Lord, make me pure in heart and bless 


NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY - 9% 


the heathen and give us snow for Christmas, but if you 
can’t do it all, don’t mind me or the heathen!’ ” 

She scarcely had time to eat. “I wish you’d all come to- 
night,” she addressed the boarders en masse. “We're having 
one grand spree. It’s early, at seven, so that the kinder- 
garteners won't fall asleep and tumble off their chairs. 
We’ve enough candy and peanuts for all the parents and all 
of you. Dr. Pearson would be a handy man to have around 
with his medicine-case. There’s a grand tree that touches 
the ceiling and everybody has a ‘piece.’? To be sure, Roxy 
Swanson speaks one that needs an interpreter. In reality it 
is “Let us in,’ they clamored, ‘let us in’ they say. But it 
sounds like ‘Lattuce-in-the-clabbord-lattuce-in-the-say.’ ” 

By afternoon the rush at the bank was greater . . . mer- 
chants’ deposits, cream checks . . . farmers’ wives in for 
their shopping .. . Christmas bundles on the desks . . 
small youngsters with their parents. School was out. It was 
snowing in a more businesslike way now. Crowds of children 
flocked past the bank windows, laughing, jumping up for 
the flakes. 

At dinner time the table was in holiday spirits. There 
were several vacant places. Helen Blakely and Dr. Pearson 
were not there and George Kendall had gone home on the 
six-fifteen to spend Christmas with his mother. Genevieve 
had not known what attitude to take, that of hurt martyr or 
to let on that it had been their plan all the time. Pride 
got the best of her now and she was saying, “George couldn’t 
bear to miss Christmas with his old mother, but as we had 
accepted the Rineland invitation before we knew he could 
get away, I’m staying here to keep the first dinner engage- 
ment.” 

Nancy appeared at the table in a creamy lace dress with 
pink rosebuds in her belt and a band of little satin ones 
in her hair. 


192 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE ~ 


“My word, Nancy,” Marty Spencer put his hand over his 
face. “You'll knock an eye out of your youngsters.” 

“I may,” she admitted coolly, “but just so it isn’t Jakie 
Cohn’s, he having none to spare.” 1B 

Most of the boarders went down to the school. The idea 
did not appeal to Genevieve Kendall. Neither did Miss Ann 
go. “Everybody in this world can’t take time to go gala- 
vanting around to things,” she remarked acridly at the table. 
But Miss Rilla went, in a soft black silk dress with a spot- 
less white lace collar. The Major, stolid and pompous, went, 
and Marty Spencer, who kept them all laughing, and 
Ambrose Jones, excited to the point of childishness. Warner 
took Nancy in his car. They were loaded with packages, 
and a crowd of pupils, like Arab beggars, surrounded and 
took possession of them on the walk in front of the school- 
house. In the hall, when Nancy took off her coat, Johnny 
Bornheimer came up and touched her dress softly. “Miss 
Moore,” he whispered, “you look like ice cream.” 

Walt and Mattie came, bringing Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny 
in Walt’s car, Aunt Biny being able to sit in the back seat 
with Mattie only because she and her crutch were providen- 
tially of one and the same thickness. 

Miss Gunn, dignified and calm, managed things. The 
parents from the district seemed to hold her in awe and 
respect! Some of the mothers who came had shawls over 
their heads. Some were plumed and decked in cheap 
jewelry. Some were dressed modestly and in good taste. 

The tree in the old assembly room was a glittering thing. 
Electric lights in rainbow colors and all the variety of © 
_ tinsel and ornaments that the town afforded were on it. Miss 
Gunn had scolded Nancy for spending so much. Mrs. 
Carlson was there with the three-months-old baby. It cried 
in a high thin piping voice. Gus took it part of the time 
and walked about the hall, jiggling it deftly, like an old — 


NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY 193 


hand at the business. Mrs. Carlson had started to get the 
children all ready at five o’clock. “A few months ago I’d 
have said, “What’s a woman want to take a baby anywhere 
for?’” Nancy told Miss Hays. “Now I have more sympathy 
for her.” 

_ The Swansons were there . .. Jim and Myrt and the 
children. Myrt, in a weird combination of slovenly wrapper 
and flashy fur-trimmed coat, sat and looked upon the 
spectacle with sluggish interest. 

The program was on in full blast. Roxy Swanson spoke 
“Lattuce-in-the-clabbord-lattuce-in-the-say,” with the board- 
ers from the “Bee-House” politely avoiding each other’s 
eyes. 

Nancy’s room had some tableaux. There were Joseph and 
_ Mary and the Babe in them. Joseph, in a blue table spread 
and turkish towel, stood first on one foot and then on the 
other, pressing his pasty beard onto his chin, and grinning 
sheepishly at his big brother sitting in the audience. But the 
little Mary knelt and looked into the painted, staring eyes 
of the doll in the manger with a great light and wonder- 
ment in her own. Potential motherhood, she was, with the 
first sweet gleam of the love of a mother in her eyes. Every 
one sat watching the children but Warner Field looked only 
at the little slim lace-gowned body of Nancy Moore, slip- 
ping in and out of the rows of pupils. 

And then the entire school, with the lovely notes of the 
old song filling the assembly room, was singing: 

“QO little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.” 

As he looked at the earnest singers, their eyes shining with 
the unquenchable light of childhood, it came suddenly to 
Warner that the world was not in chaos to the children, any 
more than it had been to him when he was a child. Here 
was a new generation in all its freshness and its eagerness 


with high hopes and ideals. To the children it was still a 


— +194 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


most beautiful world, generous, forgiving, peaceful. Why 
in the name of humanity, as they grew to maturity, couldn’t 
they keep it so? 

It was after the song, and in the confusion of the children 
getting back to their places, that Nancy beckoned Warner 
into the hall. “Be Santa Claus for us, Warner, won’t you? 
Gus Carlson thinks he ought to be banking the fires,” 

“Good heavens, Nancy. No.” 

“Please. For me! It’s time to dress.” 

It was a little thing to do for her. So, feeling foolish, 
he put on the suit and the false face and distributed the 
gifts. From seeing the upturned faces of the children, some- 
thing got into Warner’s heart that had not been there in 
the morning. Not the old thrill, far from it, but something 
that served as well; a sense of pleasure in the small ser- 
vice . . . a warmth of feeling toward childhood. 

*“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.” 

The shrill voices rose and swelled again for the last 
time. Then they all went home. Johnny Bornheimer and 
Freddy and the young mother who had taken courage in 
seeing the happiness of her two boys. The Carlsons .. . 
Gus carefully carrying the new and eighth baby, asleep 
now, warm and dimpled and healthy. | 

“Maybe he’ll be the smartest one yet, Gus.” 

“T bet he will, Jen.” 


The Swansons ... Mrs. Swanson, phlegmatic and un- 


inspired . . . Roxy, with the happy plan to become an 
actress and speak “Lattuce-in-the-clabbord,” on a theatrical 
stage ... the baby, having eaten all the candy that had 


been given him, starting now on the paper sack. 

Warner took Nancy out to the farm. She wanted to be 
there early in the morning to help. The car slipped around 
some in the new snow. Warner would not come in. He had 
a package for her though. It was only a book he said. 


NANCY WEAVES A TAPESTRY 195 


So it came about that when Nancy went up the narrow 
built-in stairs to her room, she carried two unopened pack- 
ages. She opened Mr. Farnsworth’s first and exclaimed 
aloud from the sheer delight of seeing the creamy pink 
luster of the matched pearls that lay on the velvet cushion 
of their box. She took them out and held them across the 
firm young flesh of her arm, reveling in their sheen. Then 
she laid them back in the box and opened the book. It was 
one she had said she wanted to read. And Warner had re- 
membered it. She turned the leaves. She wished she and 
Warner could read it together. But there was little chance. 
They were so seldom alone. Some one was always around, 
the boarders, or Uncle Jud or Aunt Biny. She wished she 
could see more of Warner. A swift rush of thoughts like 
warp wove themselves across the woof of her mind, forming 
a mental tapestry: a fireplace . . . a burning log . . . two | 
deep chairs ...candle light ...the book... and 
Warner. For a long time she stood by the dresser in her old 
room and looked in bewilderment upon the wondrous 
results of her weaving. Nancy, Nancy, did no one ever tell 
you that some tapestries are priceless? 


CHAPTER XIX 
CHRISTMAS 


O little town of Bethlehem! 
How still we see thee lie. 


ARNER at first thought he had been dreaming the 
melody of the Bethlehem song, but as it rose 


clearer, he could hear it plainly down below. 


It was Mary Mae Gates with the Congregational choir out in 


front of the “Bee-House.” They had been around town 
singing the carols in the various neighborhoods. It was 
frightfully early and it must have been cold. Somebody 
else, then, was doing something that would give pleasure to 
others. 

All night the snow had fallen. It rarely happens in the 
mid-west that there is a snowy Christmas any more. Even 
the Decembers are becoming sophisticated. Winter scarcely 
ever gets under way until after the holidays. So the snow 
was welcomed. 

Out at the farm Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny and Nancy 
were all astir early. Nancy’s room was cold and the snow 
was piled up against the east window. When she was 
dressing, she stopped to take the pearls out of their case 
again and enjoy their creamy rose luster. But she did not 
tarry with them long for the morning was to be full of 
tasks. When she went downstairs the three had their little 
tree and gifts together. After breakfast Nancy began to 
ask Uncle Jud to get out the old bobsled preparatory to 

196 


ag ict 


CHRISTMAS 197 


going into town for the company. Uncle Jud protested 
vehemently. 

“What in tunkit you want to do that fool thing for? 
Cars’ll come right through this snow. Walt’ll get part of 
*em and Field’1l run his car too.” 

_ “No,” Nancy teased him. “It'll just start the day right to 
have the bobsled.” 

He fussed and fretted and fumed. And all the time he 
was arguing he was sitting by the range and oiling the 
harness, getting ready to give in to her. Nancy laughed at 
him. “When I was a little girl, ’'d have lost my temper and 
stamped my foot and said things to you. And you’d have 
jawed me back. And we’d have ended in a regular tong war. 
But you can’t make me get angry at you now. I know you 
too well. Your jawing and scolding is every bit of it on the 
outside of you, like the prickles on a thistle. Inside where 
your heart is, you’re soft and silky and kind and nice and 
accommodating.” 

Uncle Jud laughed foolishly. An hour later he drove 
up io the door in the old bobsled, the bells jingling cheerily. 
Nancy brought down the robes from the attic . . . two old 
fur ones and a gaudy plush one, all smelling of moth balls. 

Over at the Bornheimers’ the snow sifted under the door 
of the cardboard house, but the tiny living room was warm. 
Miss Moore’s old Uncle Jud had brought a load of wood 
the day before and piled it by the back door. There was 
a branch of a pine tree set up on a little stand and under 
it the Christmas packages from school and warm overcoats 
for Johnny and Freddy from Miss Moore. Mrs. Born- 
heimer cried a little over the coats when the boys were 
not looking. | 

Down at the Carlsons’ the celebration was an hilarious 
one. Not a great deal of money but a great deal of energy 
had been put into it. “The’ ain’t no mudder livin’ but 


198 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


what’s got a duty to have de biggest and best Christmas for 
her kids she can get up,” Mrs. Carlson had said to Gus, 
while she singed the pin-feathers from two of the well- 
mannered Plymouth Rock roosters. All the children were 
home but Essie. Mrs. Carlson couldn’t understand what 
possessed Essie to be so crazy to go out in the country. 
“She said she’d be home for Christmas supper and all 
evenin’, but no persuasion could get her to give up goin’ out 
dere at noon.” a 

And at the Swansons’, the dynamic Roxy was engineering 
a noisy program of activities, in lieu of any energies on 
the part of her mother. She had wanted a Rhode Island 
- Red rooster for dinner, but had been told that round steak 
wasn’t so much work to get ready. “And anyway,” Mrs. 
Swanson emitted nasally, “I ain’t goin’ to kill a single 
chicken . . . it'd tickle them Carlsons too much.” 

At the big house on the hill the gifts were very elaborate. 
Mr. Rineland gave Alice and Mama each ten shares of 
stock in the old First National and Alice and Mama gave 
Papa some Italian hand-carved candleholders they had 
long wanted. Warner sent a big box of roses. It was Alice 
who opened them. When she saw the accompanying card, 
she frowned and little green lights came into her eyes. Then 
she surreptitiously removed the card before any one could 
see it. Innocently enough it had said, “A Mens Christmas 
to the Rineland family.” 

Down at the “Bee-House,” Miss Ann sat in her own room 
and observed Christmas in a very luxury of quiet. She did 
not comb her usually neat hair nor get out of a loose 
house wrapper. She read a little and dozed some and when 
the telephone rang, she said to herself, “It’s likely to be 
some inspired fool wanting to say ‘Merry Christmas’ to 
me,” and did not answer it. 

It was eleven-thirty when Uncle Jud got out to the farm 


CHRISTMAS 199 
with the boarders ... Miss Rilla, Major Slack, Essie, 


Warner, Ambrose Jones and Miss Gunn. Miss Ann sent 
her regrets without explanation to Nancy. “No, you don’t 
need to make any excuses. I’m not going to tell her the 
real reason and I| haven’t come to the point where I can lie 
glibly,” she had told Rilla. Walt and Mattie came together, 
Mattie in her old black fur coat, stepping lightly in that 
uncumbersome way, looking like a huge bear walking on 
its hind legs. 

The table was pulled out to its full length. Mr. Farns- 
worth had sent Nancy a big box of crimson roses and they 
were everywhere in the old rooms. A mass of them she had 
arranged for the table in a milk crock and banked smilax 
around it. The dinner was a thing to be remembered. Miss 
Gunn, in a wild orgy of celebration, mixed carbohydrates 
and proteids with alarming disregard of consequences. 

Major Slack, torn between his desire to settle conclusively 
all the topics of conversation and to do justice to the mouth- 
melting food, compromised somewhat disastrously by 
attempting them both simultaneously. 

Her eyes swimming in moisture, Miss Rilla, in the ab- 
sence of Miss Ann’s dampening influence, fairly oozed happi- 
ness. 

The “bore,”after his preliminary weather observations 
had nothing more to say, but with a foolishly exaggerated 
look of interest, bobbed his head this way and that to catch 
every word emitted by the others. 

Nancy had seated Walt by Essie. “Where you can 
reminisce about the days when you and I were young, 
Maggie,” she had told them. Essie had to pinch herself at 
intervals, with, “This is you, Essie Carlson, and this is 
Walt Thomas helping you to food on Christmas day.” 

When the big dinner was over Essie went immediately into 
the kitchen to help with the dishes. “No,” Mattie said to her 


200." THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


with amazing insight, “you ain’t goin’ to touch a single dish 
for one day in your life,” and sent her back to the others, 

They all went into the shabby old sitting room and 
gathered about the huge coal burner, under the watchful 
eyes of the deceased Republican presidents. Warner sat 
back in the shadow of the room, watching Nancy’s slim 
boyish figure slipping in and out of the crowd. 

When they were settled, Nancy got Miss Rilla a box of old 
photos to look at. Miss Rilla wiped her eyes every time 
she picked up a new one. “And here’s Lulu Whitney. My! 
My! It seems like yesterday that she was a little girl and 


used to run away. She was always anywhere but home. 


They lived in that old house back in the trees on Main 
between 6th and 7th. They had a parrot. Her mother would 


come to the door and call, “Lu-lu-u-u.’ All day we’d hear - 


that and half the time it was the parrot calling her “Lu-lu- 
u-u.. You couldn’t tell the parrot from Mrs. Whitney. 
And here’s Bertha Dean. Poor thing ... she wanted to 
marry Ossy Smith and her father wouldn’t let her . . . said 
Ossy wouldn’t ever earn his salt and what do you suppose 
he is now? A way-up man for the Union Pacific, riding in 
a private car. Here’s an old one of Dan Stevenson in his 
band suit. He played the fife in the fife-and-drum corps. 
Such a monkey ... always up to tricks. When I was 
a young girl once he sent Sammy Platt, a foolish boy, to 
the door with a note for me asking me to go buggy riding. 
Jt was signed with Sammy’s name and Dan had cautioned 
Sammy to do nothing but hand it in to me. But Sammy 
was only half-witted and had to spoil Dan’s joke by saying, 
‘Dan Stevenson sent this to you.’” Miss Rilla wiped 
her eyes, moist with memory. It was a long time since Miss 
Rilla had enjoyed herself so much. 

Nancy miraculously found out that Ambrose Jones could 
sing and persuaded him to demonstrate. She played the 


a 


CHRISTMAS 201 


old piano for him while he perpetrated in a guttural voice 
but with an intense enjoyment: “Out on the Deep when the 
Sun is Low.” One gained the impression that the water 
was very, very deep indeed. 


And then Uncle Jud got started. He leaned back in his 


big armchair and opened up. It was about an Indian scare. 


“They sent word the Injuns was comin’ down Tinklin’ 
Creek and Ma and me got ready to go with the crowd. 
We aimed to get together and get into Postville. Ma 
gathered up a lot o’ stuff and we put it in the wagon as 
quick as we could ’n made tracks toward Postville where 
others was leggin’ it. Awfulest scared bunch of folks you 
ever see. And do you know, the thing I recollect plainest 
about that there scare? Well, sir, ’twa’n’t the scarey part 
a-tall. "Twas Lucindy Ray .. . she’s long dead now... 
*twas Lucindy Ray openin’ up her wild strawberry jam just 
*fore the wagons started, and spreadin’ it two, three, inches 
deep on slices o’ bread for her children. “I swear to Goshen,’ 
Lucindy says, ‘there ain’t no heathen papooses goin’ to eat 
this jam when we're gone.’”’ Uncle Jud slapped his knee 
and roared. His huge gaunt frame shook with mirth. “Do 
you know, nothin’ come o’ that scare. "was a false alarm, 
as luck would have it, and the Injuns rode off in another 
direction andthe wagons all went back. ’N what do you 
suppose Lucindy Ray talked about all the time afterwards? 
That there jam she’d went and opened. Jawed about wastin’ 
it, continually. Harped on it fer a year.” More laughter 
rolled out of Uncle Jud’s hairy throat. “Don’t it beat you? 
Might’a’ lost her scalp and instid o’ being thankful the 
whole scare went into nothin’, just kep’ complainin’ over ’n 
over about wastin’ that jam.” 

It was after five when the company left. When Mattie 
realized they were talking of going, she insisted on putting 
on “a little snack” first. The “little snack” consisted of 


202 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


cold turkey, potatoes, gravy, two kinds of salad, cake, 
raisin bread, pie, pudding, fruit, rolls and jelly. She hoped 
they would all get back to town through the cold ride 
without getting hungry. She suggested that each one take 
a piece of cake or something to eat later in the evening 
in his room. 

Warner did not sit down to the lunch. “He’s going to 
Rinelands’ to their dinner, so please don’t punish him by 
insisting on a lunch, Mattie,” Nancy told her. 

So Nancy and Warner had a few moments alone in the 
old sitting room. They stood together by the geraniums 
in the bay window. 

““You’ve given them all a happy time, Nancy.” 

“T enjoyed it. It’s funny how a little unselfish service 
reacts on a person. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the biggest - 
thing in the world . . . service.” 

“No, the biggest thing in the world is money.” 

Nancy looked up. Warner’s tone was bitter. The mood 
was a strange one in him, and she did not like to see 
it. So she said, quickly: 

“Thank you for the book, Warner. I’m going to enjoy 
it.” 

“T thought perhaps we could read it together.” His tone 
was natural again. “I’m going to be very busy this coming 
week . . .” he was writing diligently every day . . . “but 
I’d like to come out next Friday if you’ve no other 
plans . . . and watch the old year out with you.” 

Nancy stood looking into the glowing coals of the old 
base-burner. Common Sense cautioned her. Desire beckoned 
her. Common Sense argued volubly and practically. But 
Desire sat down at a loom of dreams and wove a tapestry 
out of red firelight . . . acandle . . . two deepchairs ... 
a book . . . and Warner. Nancy raised her eyes from the 
loom: “And I’d like to have you, Warner.” 


CHRISTMAS 203 


The morning after Christmas, Uncle Jud was cleaning the 
stalls of the cow stable. He did not feel good, was having 
one of those spells he had experienced several times re- 
cently . . . a lassitude so intense that it was with the 
greatest will power he kept on with his task. He told him- 
self that it was all foolishness to tremble; that a big strong 
man like he was shouldn’t be so babyish; that after he had 
finished the stable, he would clean the chicken house. He 
was beginning to be a regular Hank Thomas about the 
work; guessed if he paid no attention to feeling tired, he’d 
forget it. 

Several times he leaned against the stall to steady him- 
self. It was during one of these temporary resting periods, 
that Nick Denning and Major Slack appeared in the door- 
way. Because he was feeling such physical exhaustion, he 
felt a mental one also when he saw the two. He did not 
want to sell, but quite suddenly it seemed impossible to 
combat their combined robust wills. So he sat down on 
a box and listened with unaccustomed patience to their 
inducements. When the interview ended he committed him. 
self io the extent of saying he would talk it over with Ma, 
But when he went into the house he felt too cross and tired 
to open up the subject. 

On Friday night Warner was to come out. Before his 
arrival, Nancy put a few little finishing touches to the 
appearance of the old sitting room ... straightening a 
picture or two, turning the chairs. What a homely old 
room! And what a quiet way to spend New Year’s Eve! 
And yet if she were to be truthful she wondered which of 
the last four gay ones she would exchange for this. 

Warner came through the snow. Soon after Uncle Jud 
threw his paper on the floor and stretched his huge arms 
with “I’ve always said a bed’s a good invention.” Then 
he wound the clock noisily, put a final bucket of coal in the 


204 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


huge burner and went to his room. Aunt Biny, too, slipped 
away after a while. 

Warner and Nancy read and talked. Once when Warner 
made a special reference to something that happened during 
his senior year at college, Nancy realized that she ought — 
to say, “Warner, I’ve never told you that your old friends, 
the Farnsworths, are my friends, too, and that when school 
is out I am going back East to marry Mr. Farnsworth.” 

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to say 
and the most natural one. She said it over to herself. But 
it seemed the hardest thing in the world and the most unreal. 
She put it off again. For a long time they sat in front of 
the red glow of the stove. 

The hands of the Seth Thomas clock on the shelf pointed 
to the midnight hour. Then, a little wheezily, because of- 
its half hundred years, it struck. Warner stood up and came 
toward Nancy’s chair. Nancy stood up, too, hastily, a little 
frightened. But Warner stopped suddenly by her chair, 
thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets, and held them 
there. All he said was, “Happy New Year, Nancy.” 

“Happy New Year, Warner.” 

Now! Tell him now, Nancy! 

So scarcely realizing that she was beginning, she said 
quickly, “Warner, there’s something I want to tell you... 
that I ought to have told you long ago.” 

Warner thought he knew what she meant. The diaries . . . 
something that had happened when she was eighteen . 
something that had to do with the old brown shawl in the 
cabin. He did not care now what it was, so he only said, 
“There’s something I want to tell you, too, Nancy, but not 
just yet.” 

So it went into nothing. Warner went away and Nancy 
had not told. 

Aunt Biny, rousing up, thought that Nancy had gone 


CHRISTMAS 205 


upstairs and left the light burning. So she got slowly out 
of bed and without her crutch worked her way from bed 
to chairs out to the sitting-room door. But Nancy had not 
gone upstairs. She was standing motionless by the outside 
door, with a look on her face Aunt Biny had never seen. 
Aunt Biny crept back to the bed and got down painfully 
~on her knees. 


CHAPTER XX 
TRAGEDY AT THE BEE-HOUSE 


after day seemed very much alike. Snow... 

wind . . . sunlight on snow . . . :blinding sparkles 
of it... dark gray days... low fleeting clouds... 
more snow ... wind ... long rows of stark poplars .. . 
black maples... dingy gray elms... English spar- 
rows ... crows... an. occasional redbird against the 
white snow to make glad the heart of a poet...a_ 
poet like Aunt Biny with beautiful thoughts that she could 
never get down on paper. 

Down at the Whittier the children were studying Eskimo 
life. “Miss Gunn says everything must be seasonal and 
correlate,” Nancy remarked to Miss Hays. “But I don’t 
see why it wouldn’t be pleasanter to study Fourth of July” 
things now and Eskimo life when the warm days come.” — 

On the second-grade table was a miniature representation 
of life in the arctic. There were shoe-box igloos covered 
with cotton snow and parts of a broken mirror from the 
Carlsons’ made a satisfactory if overly reflective icy sea. 
Pieces of rock salt playing the pari of icebergs stood jauntily 
on the mirror. A papier-maché seal which Roxy Swanson 
had brought from home, apologizing because the omnivorous 
baby had bitten off a piece of its tail, added a sporting touch. 
Woodpeckers, owls, jays, chickadees, doves and hawks 
entered largely into the daily conversation of the children. 

Warner was working on the story every moment he could 
get. He felt now that it was good. His own sense of the 
206 


FTER New Year’s winter got down to business. Day 


TRAGEDY AT THE BEE-HOUSE 207 


value of things, his dramatic instinct, told him so. The old 
knack of expressing himself had come back and with it a 
deeper understanding of humanity. Many of the anecdotes 
which Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny told, some of the reminis- 
cences of Mr. Rineland, his own childish memories and the 
tales of his father he wove into the pattern of the story. 

Life at the “Bee-House” took on something of an un- 
eventful routine. In the midst of the unexciting days Roxy 
Swanson took a hand and relieved the even tenor of things 
by breaking out with smallpox as thoroughly as she did 
everything else. She “didn’t feel good,” she said, and 
Nancy, remembering the day she had been afraid to tell the 
_ same thing to Miss Addison, had taken Roxy into her lap 
and held her for a while, a motherly but unpedagogical pro- 
ceeding. That night Dr. Pearson called Nancy aside before 
dinner and told her the result of his trip to the Swansons’. 

Many of the children were vaccinated. Dr. Pearson did | 
some of the work deftly in his immaculate office. Old Doc 
Minnish, in his dusty office, with his dog nosing familiarly — 
about, did the rest. He dropped the vaccine points on the 
floor and felt around in the dust for them, but apparently 
nobody was any the worse for it. 

A few days later, Nancy, coming in late to dinner at the 
“Bee-House” and passing the dining-room door unobserved, 
took in the fact that there was no conversation although 
every one was in his place. A dull air of monotony per- 
vaded the table. She stole swiftly up to her room, emerging 
some time later to take her place among them with un- 
accustomed quiet. 

Miss Gunn was the first to speak. In an awed voice she 
asked: “Why, Nancy Moore, what is the matter with you?” 
_ Mary Mae Gates jumped up from her chair with a nervous 
half-stifled scream. Warner Field’s heart leaped to his 
throat. Nancy’s face was a mass of little red spots. 


208 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE ~ 


‘But Dr. Pearson rose leisurely and sauntered over to 
Nancy, took her by the arm and turned her about with: 
“Little girls who eat here are required to wash their faces 
before coming to the table.” It had been one of Nancy’s 
foolish tricks to paint her face with water colors and throw 
a little excitement into the dullness of the day. Yes, Nancy 
was the Peter Pan of the “Bee-House.” 

Out at Uncle Jud’s the farmhouse seemed to sit drearily 
waiting in the wind until Friday night when Nancy, gay and 
snowy, would blow in like the breeze that came with her. 
Aunt Biny limped about all day doing the hundred tasks that 
awaited her. Uncle Jud was not doing anything more than 
the chores these days. He fussed and fretted a great deal 
to Aunt Biny about the cold. Never had known it to 
be so penetrating. He had a half notion to take Nick 
Denning’s offer and move to Californy. Maybe he could 
get warm once he was out there. Aunt Biny, listening 
patiently, thought that it was all talk, that nothing could 
pry him away from the furrows he had first turned out 
of virgin soil. 

In the third week of the month Alice Rineland and her 
mother left for New York City. They were to have two or 
three weeks of shopping, sightseeing, music and the the- 
ater and another week with Warner’s mother and his 
sister Eleanor at the latter’s home. Mr. Rineland and 
Warner saw them off on the night train with the baggage 
man, the agent, the fat mail boy and the hangers-on assist- 
ing at the ceremony. Warner sent messages to his people. 
When the train was coming in noisily, Alice put out both 
hands and raised blue eyes to him, “Four weeks is a long 
time, Warner.” 

It irritated and worried him. Her tone was unmistakable. 
Since Thanksgiving he had half suspected it and to-night 
he felt sure that she was misinterpreting his friendship for 


TRAGEDY AT THE BEE-HOUSE 209 


the family. So he had to add this knowledge to his other 
troubles, did he? All the way back to the “Bee-House” he 
was thinking it over and wondering if by any chance Mr. 
Rineland was misinterpreting it too. It was Nancy he loved. 
And Nancy? He could not be sure of her, of course. She 
seemed never to settle down to one mood. Does the butter- 
fly settle down or the swallow? But in whatever mood he 
found her, she was infinitely dear and alluring. He looked 
up at the tower-corner bedroom. Things must drift along 
as they were until after the decision of the publishers. He 
was glad Alice was to be gone during these weeks. By the 
time her trip was over, he would probably know where he 
stood with the publishers . ..and Nancy. Whether he 
would stay in the bank was a question he evaded. For the 
_ time his mind must be on the work in hand . . . finishing 
the story. 

He sprang up the stairs to his room and went straight to 
work on the manuscript, polishing, turning, cutting, insert- 
ing, retyping, putting all the little deft touches upon it 
which a sculptor puts on stone. He knew he was not treating 
himself well physically. This getting only a little sleep was 
wearing. But a few weeks more would finish the whole 
thing. 

The next morning he arose, took a cold plunge to get 
himself fully awakened after the short night and went to 
the dining room. Dr. Pearson and Miss Gunn were the 
only two at the table. Strangely enough Nancy blew in 
next, looking as fresh as the cold morning itself. They 
joked her about the early hour. Scarcely had they dropped 
their banter when Miss Rilla, in extreme agitation, called 
_ from the stairway: 

“Dr. Pearson ... all of you... come.” 
The doctor was at her side in a moment. The others had 
risen, too, and followed him out. 


210 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“It’s Ambrose Jones,” she told them. “He’s dead, I 
think.” | 

It was so. When they got to the second floor room, he lay 
in a crumpled heap by the dresser, flattened up against it as 
though he had. stepped aside to let the ladies pass by. 
His boyish blue tie was still in his hand. Miss Rilla ex- 
plained many times, that she had been in the hallway, had 
heard a sudden choking sound and then some one falling. 
Dr. Pearson made a hurried examination. The “bore” was 
gone. 

But even death itself could not keep the boarders’ eyes 
from the little old lady who sat in the big chair at the far 
end of the room. Miss Rilla was crying in her tender- 
hearted, emotional way. “She’s daffy,” she told them. “Has 
no mind at all . . . is just a child.” | 

The little old mother of Ambrose Jones in a neat dark 
dress and white cap sat folding pieces of bright-colored 
ribbon-ends and placing them in piles. She paid no at- 
tention to Dr. Pearson or Warner Field as they put the 
still figure on the bed. She went on smiling and humming 
and folding little gaudy-colored pieces of ribbon-ends that 
her oldest boy had brought to her from the store where 
he worked. 

“He never wanted us to tell any one about his mother,” 
Miss Rilla was telling them. “He couldn’t bear to put her 
away in an institution. They’ve lived here almost two years 
and I don’t believe anybody knows it but Sister Ann and 
Mrs. Carlson and I. He’s always kept his door closed. They 
came one evening after dark. He has taken all the care of 
her . . . dressed her every morning and combed her hair. 
We’ve cooked her food but he always fed her himself. He 
told us she’d been that way for years . . . so gentle and 
harmless, poor dear. And poor Mr. Jones ... poor 
boy .... I guess he never had a good time in his life 


TRAGEDY AT THE BEE-HOUSE 211 


with young people. Hw always acted poner to see and hear 
them.” 

Nancy and Miss Gunn heard it from the doorway. Warner 
stood by and listened dully. The “bore”! He had cut him 
off short, had started off when he saw him coming. And 
the fellow had been hungry for companionship, had given 
the best of his life to protect his mother from prying eyes, 
as he himself had shielded his own mother from his father’s 
disgrace. And now the “bore” lay still on the bed no longer 
able to stand between her and the curious. That which I see 
not teach Thou me. 

Warner walked downstairs with Naney, who was shaken. 
“I guess there’s something in every one’s life, Warner,” she 
said suddenly. “How thoughtless we are of each other. I 
remember how he slipped outside his door and closed it 
quickly one night when I was taking candy around to 
everybody. I laughed at him because I thought he was 
embarrassed. I’ve made so much fun of him just to make 
you people laugh. Sometimes I think I’ll never say a 
funny thing again.” 

But of course she did. She could no more have abandoned 
that gay little way of hers than she could have changed 
the color of her eyes. 

Everything atthe “Bee-House” was quiet and subdued for 
several days. They took the little old lady away, smiling, 
with her package of bright-colored ribbons in her hand. 
And they took the “bore” out beyond Tinkling Creek where 
the snow was thick on the cedars. It plunged them all into 
a realization of the great dark things of life. Especially 
to Nancy was life beginning to seem complex. There were 
so many more raw things about it: her own half-acknowl- 
edged troubles; the Kendalls all worked up over real or 
fancied wrongs; the “bore’s” death; the Bornheimers barely 
existing; Uncle Jud’s slipping health. 


212 THE RIM OF THE P?AIRIE 


But is was not long until every o1e was gay. In a few 
days there began to be the same stir and small pleasantries 
at meals. Mary Mae Gates came in one night and dropped 
languidly into her chair. She was so fatigued she told the 
table. “I’ve been getting music ready for the Community 
Bazaar. I don’t know why it always has to be me. Surely 
there are other people in this town who could take charge. 
But I’m shouldering it as usual. They are having twelve 
booths, one for each month and everything in it . . . just 
everything, appropriate to the month. Even the music, you 
know. In the May room I’m planning to have the duet: 
‘Oh, that we two were Maying.’ That will be pretty and 
artistic. But appropriate music for some of the other 
months is going to be hard to get.” 

“That’s easy,” Nancy shrugged a lithe shoulder. “Just 
change the words of the same song. In the July room, you 
know, you could sing: ‘Oh, that we two were haying.’ ” 

In the midst of the general laugh Dr. Pearson added, 
“Sure, and in January: ‘Oh, that we two were sleighing.’ ” 

The others took it up noisily, “Oh, that we two were 
braying !).).”. “neighing”’...\. “laying” aa 

And the dinner went into one of those noisy jolly affairs 
to which the house had been accustomed before the “bore’s” 
death. Life always closes over the vacancy and goes on. 


CHAPTER XXI 
“I LOVE YOU!” 


EBRUARY came in mild and sunshiny. On the second 
the all-powerful groundhog saw his shadow and with 
one whisk of his tail turned the whole tide of weather 
affairs back to winter. On the surface of things the month 

seemed to come in uneventfully. But months are never un- 

eventful to a community. Some one has a deep trouble, a 

great joy, a cruel disappointment, a thrill of anticipation. 

To Warner came the pleasure and fear of calling his work 

finished. In a small way he had the sensation of the Creator, 

who, looking upon his handiwork, beheld “that it was good.” 

As he went over it for the last time he felt confident that 

he had caught in it the spirit of the pioneers . . . the long 

dip and swell of the prairie grass ... the song of the 
robins in the cottonwoods . . . the sunlight across the low 
rolling hills . . . the rush of the high violent winds that 
sweep the country . . . the hush of the low whispering ones 
that die away as the dawn comes in. With all his writing 
of sophisticated things he had been dissatisfied, but now 
he had indited a goodly thing . . . the simple story of the 

Jand that is neither east nor west. Warner not only felt 

this but he understood fully what flame had relighted the 

low burning embers of his talent. 

_ And so the first part of February saw Warner and Nancy 
seeking each other as naturally as the flower and the sun, 

or the lark and the sky, It saw Nancy plunged into deep 

groveling depths of depression for long moments, to emerge 
213 


214 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


as gay and nonchalant and unconcerned as though life 
were simple. It saw Uncle Jud sitting by the range, never 
quite warm enough, looking questioningly at his hands 
stretched out before the fire, watching them tremble, won- 
dering what had become of the strength in those huge 
palms that had turned the prairie and built a home. It saw 
Aunt Biny limping about her homely tasks, stopping to look 
out of the window to watch the sunlight on the snow of the 
rolling hills. It saw Miss Ann troubled about many things; 
interest, grocery bills, insurance. It saw Miss Rilla anoint- 
ing all the little troubles and jevs of the town with the 
ointment of her tears. It saw George and Genevieve Kendall 
in a state of anger and resentment, straining at the chains 
that bound them. It saw Walt Thomas mending fences, 
cleaning the stables, getting all the odd jobs done befcre 
the avalanche of spring work came upon him, questioning 
the reason for Essie Carlson’s plain little face seeming to 
haunt him. It saw Miss Gunn patiently adhering to her 
duties, looking forward to the day when she could begin 
to have some fun; Marty Spencer, light, frothy, touching at 
the tips of the blossoms of pleasure; Major Slack, pompous, 
bombastic, settling all the questions of the universe. It 
saw Mary Mae Gates practicing her scales and dreaming of 
concert halls and thundering applause; Dr. Pearson, scien- 
tific and immaculate, saving lives; old Doc Minnish, dirty, 
axle grease on his hands, oats in his pockets, saving others. 
It saw Essie, washing hordes of dishes, wistful, wondering 
why the Great Sculptor formed some girls lovely and gave 
them charm and vivacity and made others common looking 
and uninteresting. Tangled roots! 

- At the Whittier, the second-grade schoolroom took on the 
festive air of many birthdays. Among those prominent 
people whose natal days were scheduled for celebration 
were Washington, Lincoln, Longfellow, Jakie Cohn and the 


“I LOVE YOU!” | ot 


Carlson twins. Every one lived in the thrilling anticipation 
of patriotism, cherries, hatchets and valentines. 

And at the farm on the second Thursday of the month, 
Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny prepared to go to town. Uncle 
Jud got into a clean shirt laboriously. Strangely enough he 
was not fussing about it . . . that it had “too much starch 
in the blamed thing.” He was very meek and very quiet. 
Aunt Biny, too, limped about the rooms, touching her crutch 
lightly to the floor, as she assembled her wraps for the 
journey. It was as though they were stepping softly in 
rooms where the dead lie sleeping. This was “The Day.” 
Earthquakes have shaken mountains with no less sweeping 
effect. Revolutions have swept empires leaving no greater 
radical change. They were selling the place. He who flits 
lightly as a bird from shelter to shelter may not understand. 
He who changes abode easily does not know the love of such 
as these for the rafters that have stood the battering of the 
‘storm, the sheltering walls that have heard the roar of 
rains and the chimney from which has gone up the altar 
smoke of a home. 


This place was home; and here were hearts made glad 
With simple things, bread, laughter, wind and sun, 
Red dawn, gray dusk, and rest when day was done. 


And now it was to belong to some one else... to go 
to the Dennings. They had decided it definitely the day 
before and the Dennings wanted to see it through at once. 
Nick and Mrs. Denning came for them in the big car. 
They drove in the lane road and turned around before 
‘stopping. Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny were ready. Uncle 


Jud helped Aunt Biny into the back seat with Mrs. Denning _. 


and then climbed in the front with Nick. Nick had cleaned 
up for the event. Mrs. Denning, tall and angular, was 


216 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


clean, too, but she had spoiled the looks of one of the 
highest priced suits and hats in Maple City. 

All the way into town Uncle Jud did not say much. Aunt 
Biny, too, left the conversation largely to the neighbor 
woman. 

They went immediately to the bank where Mr. Rineland 
took them into his private office. The contract was drawn 
up. Uncle Jud signed it. Aunt Biny signed it. Warner Field 
witnessed it. Mr. Rineland, as notary, acknowledged the 
execution of their voluntary deed. Mr. Denning paid down 
a thousand dollars cash. The date of possession was given 
as March fifteenth. Ten thousand dollars cash was to be 
paid on that date and the balance with a note secured 
by a first mortgage on the land. All business transactions. 
All dry data. All in the day’s work of the bank. Just a 
sale of “one hundred and sixty acres with all buildings 
thereon.” But nothing of the sale of the wood thrush that 
sang at evening, the phlox that grew on the way to the well, 
or the light that lay on the rim of the prairie. In the 
transaction nothing included the transfer of a half century’s 
hopes and fears, or the title to love and service and mem- 
ories. 

When the deal was over, Mr. Rineland told Jud he was 
glad he had done it. “You can rest now and take things 
easy.” 

Old Jud Moore nodded his huge gray head in affirmation. 

On the way home Nick was loquacious. He felt good that 
the deal was over. “You'll see some changes when you come 
back from Indiany or Californy visitin’ us,” he chuckled. 
“Carl and I got a lot o’ plans to fix it up. Your old orchard 
for one thing. ’Tain’t been my business heretofore . . . that 
that ain’t been profitable. But now ’tis. Carl ’n I plan to 
cut the trees ’n grub out the stumps. Turnin’ that ground 
into popcorn will pay better than those few old apples 


“IT LOVE YOU!” 217 


you re gettin’ now. We're goin’ to cut the cottonwoods too, 
Never could bear that white fuzz blowin’ around.” 

There were other changes to be made. The row of osage 
oranges in front of the corn was to come out, he explained. 
“They sap out the life of several rods of good corn land. 
Likewise part of the maple windbreak, soon as we can get 
the choppers. Whole thing’s too shady, Jud.” 

Uncle Jud helped Aunt Biny out with no word. The 
Dennings drove away. Aunt Biny limped into the house and 
Uncle Jud went out to the barn. He did not stop there 
but walked on past it down the lane road and toward the 
orchard . . . walked along in his Sunday suit, his best 
overcoat and muffler and thick winter cap, dressed as 
though he had come from a funeral. The snow crunched 
under his buckled overshoes. In the orchard he stopped 
and looked around him, dazed. He put a huge calloused 
hand out on one of the trees, touching its moist gray bark 
gently. He went on until he came to Tinkling Creek, tramp- 
ing along its bank and thrusting aside the wet frozen 
branches in his path. He came then in time to the edge of 
the cornfields and the wheat land and the pasture and 
looked long at them lying under their quilts of snow. He 
made the entire rounds of the place in the chill of the late 
afternoon, coming back to the house lot past the maple 
windbreak and the cottonwoods. Under the maples he 
stood for some time and looked up into their gaunt tower- 
ing branches. A hundred empty nests swung idly in the 
wind . . . houses from which the soul had gone. Then old 
Jud Moore turned and went slowly up the back path to 
the kitchen door. 

On the third Saturday of the month Warner heard from 
the publishers. As he picked the letter from the mail he 
had a nervousness, half fearful, half pleasurable, about 
opening it. The letter was brief. The story was the best 


Aes) THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


thing he had done. They wanted him to come on East for 
a conference. He laid the letter down on his desk and sat 
quietly, humbly before it. He had no boyish joy over the 
acceptance. The feeling lay deeper. He had worried and 
worked and anguished too much the past year, to spring into 
any expression of pleasure. Only a deep thankfulness, a 
welcome relief was within him. As soon as he could catch 
Mr. Rineland alone, he went to him with the letter and asked 
how he felt about the trip. He would make it as quickly as 
possible, he explained. A day down in New York, one day 
out with his mother and sister, a few hours in Chicago to 
attend to some business and he would be back before that 
busiest time of all country bankers . ... March first. Mr. 
Rineland, kind and accommodating as always, readily as- 
sented to the plan. Mr. Rineland had received an impor- 
tant letter too, he said. “Alice and Mama will be home 
Sunday night. They’ve had a nice trip. I’m afraid Maple 
City will seem a little monotonous to them.” 

Warner immediately set Sunday night as the time of his 
departure. He was anxious to have everything cleared up, 
a whole series of unsettled things . .. payment for the 
serial, a partial cancellation of the debt, his feeling for 
Nancy put into words, his friendship for Alice back in the 
place it belonged, a decision made on his future work. He 
did not like uncertainties. 

Sunday night at the “Bee-House” supper table, the con- 
versation was largely about Warner’s leaving for New. York. 
For one of their number to be going to the big town was 
an event. There was a good deal of talk about the whole 
boarding house going down to the station to see him off. 

“It’s too late,” Major Slack settled the question. “Eleven- 
five is too late for anybody to sit up.” 

In the evening Warner went dutifully up to the Rinelands’ 
to see the travelers, first-hand knowledge of his mother and 


“T LOVE YOU!” 219 


sister his only reason for going. He excused himself early 
and somewhat incoherently for one of his usual straight- 
forwardness. Alice cried a little when he had gone. And 
she felt a certain resentment toward Mama. _ It was the first 
time she had ever wanted anything that Mama did not get her 
at once. 

It turned out that three of the boarders did go down to the 
train with Warner ... Nancy, Dr. Pearson and Helen 
Blakely. 

When Helen and the doctor stopped at the weighing ma- 
chine inside the stuffy waiting room, Warner and Nancy 
went outdoors and sauntered down past the baggage room. 
There were empty milk cans piled high a little way beyond. 
They walked on past them and past chicken crates from 
which came a rustling feathery sound. With that sixth 
sense that lies buried somewhere in the region of things 
intuitional, Nancy felt a vague uneasiness. So she covered 
it with small chatter. “These same chickens were here five 
months ago when I came.” 

At the end of the freight shed Warner broke into the 
monologue. “I wanted to tell you alone the reason for this 
trip, Nancy. It’s to see my publishers. When you came 
last fall I was in a blue funk over my writing, I think 
you're responsible for helping pull me out of the slump into 
which I had fallen. I’ve just completed and sold a book- 
length story.” 

Far off the incoming train whistled for the grade. “I 
suspected it, Warner.”’ Common sense waved frantic sig- 
nals to her, but to save herself she could not help what crept 
into her voice. “But I wanted you to want to tell me.” 

The long screech for the first town crossing sounded 
shrilly. “I want to tell you many things, Nancy, but I’m 
waiting until I come back.” Suddenly he caught her to him. 
“No .. . I’m not waiting either.” He held her close, and 


: 


KR 
* 


220 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


kissed her. ‘The first thing . . . and the last one... . is] 
love you.” ‘The train was sweeping in. “All the others in 
between, I’1l tell you when I get back.” 

Nancy forgot everything in the world, excepting that he 
was Warner, and clung to him. Then all the love that was 
in her face was swept out on a tide of remembering. The 
train was snorting like an angry animal with snow on its 
back. Warner was hurrying her by the side of it and she 
was gazing stupidly at him swinging up the steps.of his 
sleeper. Then she was with Dr. Pearson and Helen walking 
toward the doctor’s car. She stumbled a little when she 
stepped in. 

“Cheer up, Nancy .. . it’s only for a week,” the doctor 
joked her. 

And Nancy, the saucy, had no answer for him. 

At the “Bee-House” she slipped up the two flights of 
stairs and into her room. But she did not turn on the light. 
Just inside the door she stood with taut nerves and tense 
body. She must think the thing out immediately, plan what 
to do. She should have told Warner the circumstances 
months before, but it was futile now to waste time in regrets. 
The thing was to decide what to do with the present situ- 
ation. But she could not think clearly for remembering 
those last moments at the station. She closed her eyes under 
the memory of them. In all her joy of living she had not 
dreamed that life could give so rare a thing. Love then 
was the high ecstatic thing at which she had scoffed. It 
was all Aunt Biny had said it was . . . deep and very pre- 
vious. It was not fragile. It was strong. And it had 
nothing to do with things. How right Aunt Biny had been! 
Aunt Biny, who was neither educated nor sophisticated .. . 
how wise she was! 

She had a sudden great desire to see Aunt Biny, to tell her 
everything, to ask her what to do. She wanted to go out 


“{ LOVE YOU!” 221 


home and sit at her knee and ask her help. She went over to 
the window seat and looked out, with some wild thought of 
attempting to make the trip. But it was dark and slushy 
and almost midnight. She dropped down on the floor and 
buried her face in the pillows of the window seat in an 
attempt to make some plans. But she could do nothing 
much but fight the memory of Warner; and while she was 
doing so, old Judge Baldwin’s clock on the stairway struck 
midnight and one and two. It was cold. The wind blew 
around the room in the tower. Once she got up and put 
on a warm bathrobe over her dress. Down on Main Street 
the electric light on the corner made an eerie circle of shad- 
ows in the street. Always her thoughts came around in as 
circuitous a track as the shadow in the street . . . Warner 
... Mr. Farnsworth ... her position ... the contract 
with the board ... Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny ... and 
then Warner again. Life was no longer merely “queer” to 
Nancy. It was tragic. 

Nancy was not the only one awake in the stiliness of the 
cold night. Warner Field, in the small quarters of his 
berth, lay with his hands under his head and thought of 
many things in his life; when he was a little boy in Omaha, 
his years in preparatory school, his college days, his first 
accepted writings, the careless free-handed way'in which 
he had spent his income, the thing his father had done, his 
debt, his own and his mother’s illness in the epidemic, the 
turn of the wheel that had sent him to Maple City, the new 
story ... Nancy! Everything in his life seemed leading to 
her. Even his troubles had been necessary for the 
meeting with her. Was it possible that things worked out 
that way, that griefs and anxieties were necessary threads to 
be woven into the cloth of happiness? And lying there with 
his eyes on the swaying curtain, he lived over that last mo- 
ment at the station with Nancy. How lovely she was! 


i mee THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Every feature was full of youth and vitality. He tried... 


and without success . . . to decide what was the most exqui- 
site thing about her . . . her wide brown eyes, tender and 
merry . .. her soft laughing mouth or that lovely line of 
her throat. 


And Jud Moore was awake. He was too cold to sleep. 
Even the extra comforter that he had pulled up cautiously 
rhade no difference. And he kept thinking of queer things 

. seeds that rotted ‘in the earth and never came up .. . 
empty birds’ nests that swung all winter in the wind and 
never saw spring ... snow that drifted and drifted and 
never melted. . . ! Moving slowly and stopping every few 
moments to see if he was waking Ma, he got out of bed and 
made his way to the kitchen. Shutting the door so that she 
might not hear, he lighted the lamp. Then he built a fire 
in the range and heated water, putting his feet in a pail of 
it to see if he could warm himself. This was Sunday night 
he was thinking. Nancy wouldn’t be home until next Fri- 
day night. He must have a talk with her . . . wouldn’t put 
it off again. That was the trouble with him . . . doggone it 

. always talked a lot when there was no need of it and 
was tongue-tied when he ought to be talking. He wished he 
felt good. February and March were bad months. He’d 
be all right again in April. He’d be ready to go into the 
field by the time the frost was out of the ground. God 
A’mighty . . . he had no field. The slow, painful tears of 
an old man slipped down his hairy cheeks. 

A quarter of a mile away Walt Thomas was awake. He 
was having one of those restless spells again. He wished 
he could get that queer new problem settled in his mind: 
If a person had loved once, could he love again? 

Over in town Johnny Bornheimer was awake. He was 
hungry and he cried softly to himself so that his mother 
might not hear. At the “Bee-House” Genevieve Kendall 


“I LOVE YOU!” 223 


was awake. She had been in to the bank that day to ask Mr. 
Rineland what lawyer was the best one for her to retain 
for divorce proceedings. Mr. Rineland had made her angry, 
had tried to tell her that George was all right, said that 
everybody had something to put up with. She guessed she 
knew George a lot better than Mr. Rineland did. Miss Ann 
was awake. The spring taxes would be due in a few weeks. 
Manage as she would this winter, the income from the 
boarders only seemed to set the table again and pay Essie 
and Mrs. Carlson. She thought of the pride that her father 
and mother had taken in the big house and the pride that 
_ was keeping it in the Baldwin name. Pride! It had been 
the Baldwins’ Nemesis. Out on a country road Dr. Pearson 
was awake. He had to grit his teeth to keep the numbness 
of sleep from creeping over him as he drove in from a 
country call. Several times he jerked himself up on the 
verge of letting the enemy overtake him. A moment of 
succumbing and the steering wheel would turn traitor and 
snuff out his life. Helen Blakely was awake. She had 
heard Dr. Pearson’s car go out and he was not back. It 
made her think of anxious women everywhere . . . fisher- 
men’s wives standing on wind-swept shores, miners’ wives at 
the yawning mouths of pits, aviators’ wives looking up at 
tiny specks i in the sky. For a few moments all over the com- 
munity many people roused and thought of the things which 
lay close to their hearts and turned and could not sleep. 
But Miss Gunn slept. She had reviewed the causes, re- 
mote and immediate, of the'French Revolution and her mind 
was easy because of the important thing it had accomplished. 
And Miss Rilla slept, comfortable and wholesome. Marty 
Spencer slept, his mind as unruffled as a boy’s. The Major 
slept, snoring as spasmodically as the guns at San Juan, 
sunk in oblivion as deep as the battleship in the waters 
of Havana. And Mary Mae Gates slept and dreamed of a 


224, | THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


curtain that raised and raised, before which she bowed and 
bowed. In the Italian Renaissance house up on three ter- 
races, Alice Rineland slept. She and her mother had per- 
fected a plan in the evening after Warner left and because 
she felt a sense of certainty that things were to come her 
way, she had fallen into a contented sleep. Across the 
creek the Swansons and the Carlsons slept, healthy and 
crowded, three in a bed. And out beyond the arched iron 
gate under the bending cedars, Ambrose Jones, the “bore,” 
slept most quietly of all. 


Re Sooper tk 


CHAPTER XXII 
ALICE RINELAND PERFECTS A PLAN 
QO N Monday it turned warmer so that the snow began to 


slush and slop under foot and the culverts to run 

water. Nancy went to school, weary and troubled. 
Her head ached from worry and loss of sleep. School did 
not go well. Herman Guggenmeier had a stubborn streak 
and sat idle with his under lip hanging out. Nancy was too 
impatient with him to employ her usual tact and shook him 
briskly so that he went from a comparative state of stubborn- 
ness into a superlative one. Roxy Swanson irritated her 
beyond measure with her mature didactic way of suggesting 
various improvements in Nancy’s mode of teaching. With 
supreme sarcasm she said, “Roxy, do you want to change 
places with me and do the teaching?” a suggestion which 
delighted instead of abashed Miss Swanson. In the middle 
of the forenoon the fire gong sounded. It was only drill, 
but Nancy’s stripped nerves jumped to meet it. The Super- 
intendent took this auspicious morning to arrive on an in- 
spection trip. Because there was slushy snow in front of the 
building he drove up to the side, so that Nancy did not see 
him until he opened the door of her room. To Miss 
Hays, at recess, she accused him of sneaking up on them like 


an Indian. ee 
At lunch Marty Sper greeted her with an inane, “Feel- 


° 


ing like a grass widow, Nancy?” and was silenced by . 


Nancy’s unspoken Speech, . Essie, bringing creamed salmon, 
which Nancy detested with,a hate as deep as the waters in 


prt ba 
” 


= 


226 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


which it was speared, whispered as she passed her chair, 
“He forgot to take a bunch of clean collars he had laid out 
on his dresser.” 

How they all connected her with Warden The friendship 
had drifted into its present state by such infinitesimal prog- 
ress, too. And she must summon all her courage and be 
ready to mee. Warner with the truth when he came hack. 
She had decided to stick it out. For a time she had thought 
of precipitate flight. It was the easier way and the cowardly 
one. But her contract with the board was not a trifling 
matter. No; she would face Warner and tell him what she 
should have told him long before. There was no one to 
blame but herself. As she was finishing lunch, Essie called 
her to the ’phone. Even then her first thought was of War- 
ner. Nothing had happened to him, had it? Then she 
was reviling herself for thinking of him first, when Aunt 
Biny might be ill. But nothing had happened at all. It 
was Alice Rineland wanting her to come to dinner that eve- 
ning. She would come for Nancy in the car at six she said. 
Why this sudden burst of friendship, Nancy wondered list- 
lessly as she accepted? At least if she went to the Rine- 
lands’ she would be spared the insipid jokes of the boarders 
concerning Warner’s absence. 

The afternoon in the second grade at the Whittier was 
typically miserable. Nothing big occurred, just a swarm of 
irritating things that would not have seemed so if she had 
not been in a constant state of worry. When the books were 
put away and the thirty-one heads were bowed, that: “Now 
the day is ended, night is drawing nigh,” was as welcome as 
the lighthouse to a tired mariner. 

Nancy dressed carefully for the Rinelands, remembering 
those other days when she had felt sensitive about her 


clumsy clothes by the side of Alice’s dainty ones. 


At six Alice came in the sedan, the water splashing the 


ALICE RINELAND PERFECTS A PLAN 227 


running-board as she drove up in front of the “Bee-House.” 
Essie was putting on the table the dishes of radishes which 
Miss Ann was begrudging. “They expect them, though, this 
time of year, so what are you going to do about it?” she had 
growled. Essie looked out. “My! Nancy, you’re climbing 
-up in the world,” she called from the dining room as Nancy 
came down the stairs. “My goodness,” she added, “you 
look like a million dollars.” 

Nancy went down to the old granite carriage block from 
which Miss Ann and Miss Rilla had once stepped into their 
pony cart. 

“You shouldn’t have brought out your shining car for 
me, Alice.” 

“Oh, we keep a man to clean it, you know.” Most people 
could have stated it as a matter of fact. In Alice’s voice it 
sounded smug, complacent. 

At the Rineland home the two girls went into the big liv- 
ing room with the mulberry davenport and the overstuffed 
chairs, the silk-shaded lamps and the grand piano. Straight 
as a needle to a magnet, Nancy’s eyes went to a big picture 
of Warner on the fireplace mantel. Out of a room rather 
overfurnished with objets d’art the picture caught her the 
- moment she stepped inside. 

Mr. Rineland was there, his clothes immaculate, every 
gray hair in place. He was pleasant and hospitable, was 
glad Mama and Alice had asked Nancy to dinner. He 
shook her hand cordially. “It’s nice to have you here, 
Nancy. Of all the little girls that Alice knew, I used to 
enjoy your coming the most.” 

Nancy smiled at him. Dear Mr. Rineland! He said that 
same thing every time she saw him. 

“Well, your Uncle Jud has sold his farm, Nancy.” 

“Yes, I’m glad. In one way I hate to see the old place 
go, but it’s best for them.” 


228 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE. 


““He’s a great character . . . Jud Mooreis . . . loyal and 
- honest ... the salt of the earth.” 

Mrs. Rineland came in. She was overdressed. She had 
on a rose-colored dress cut on sixteen-year-old lines and 
long seed-pearl earrings. Her small peaked face seemed 
squeezed between the two dangling appendages. She was 
feeling a sense of elation over the fact that Nancy was no 
doubt overwhelmed at the grandeur of the house. It was 
the greatest pleasure she had in Maple City, to be able to 
catch a look of wonder and admiration on the faces of her 
local callers when they were ushered in. If she had known 
how little it was awing Nancy, the evening would have been 
spoiled for her. 

Dinner was served. It began pleasantly enough. It may 
have been more elaborate than the occasion warranted. 

“T haven’t had a chance to ask you about your trip, Alice.” 

“Tt was very nice. Mama and I enjoyed it. We spent 
a week, you know, with Warner’s people.” She spoke 
quietly and gently. Nancy was uncomfortable. She’ could 
feel the blood mounting to her face. 

“Fine people,” Mr. Rineland expressed himself. “Fine 
family. I have known them since the days when they first 
came to Omaha. Matthew Field was a rare man, college- 
bred, from an eastern family of splendid lineage. The 
mother was a real lady out here in the young West, when 
the word meant something more definite than it does now. 
Mr. Field’s untimely death shocked every one. Warner is 
a great deal like him, courteous, clean-cut and_ sincere. 
Everybody respects Warner. There is something extremely 
likeable about him.” 

Nancy could have cried from the way she was shaken. 
She was afraid they could hear the pounding in her ears. 

“We’re looking for Mrs. Field and Eleanor to come out in 
the summer,” Mrs. Rineland said. “They will visit in 


ALICE RINELAND PERFECTS A PLAN 229 


Omaha first and then come to us here. Aren’t those the 
plans, Alice?” She shot a sharp hawklike glance from Alice 
to Nancy. Alice’s gray-blue eyes were soft, guileless. 

“The present plans,” she smiled. Nancy felt horrid and 
vexed. She had an instinctive sensation of being caught in 
a trap and politely tortured. Mr. Rineland was sincere. 
The women sounded as though they were giving a well re- 
hearsed dialogue. She changed the tupic of conversation 
herself. And then after a time dinner was over. 

Mr. Rineland went to his library to smoke. Mrs. Rine- 
land, too, excused herself rather incoherently. The two 
girls went into the living room again. Nancy curled up in 
a big chair near the piano. “Play, Alice,” she urged. “It 
will be nice to hear real music, again. I amuse myself with 
it at the ‘Bee-House’ and Mary Mae Gates amuses herself 
but she’s no Ponselle and I’m no Rachmaninoff.” 

Alice chose something at hand, not too discriminatingly. 
When she had finished, the final chord ending rather 
abruptly, she slipped over to the davenport. Her soft pale 
prettiness stood out cameolike. “Let’s just talk now, Nancy. 
There’s something I’ve been wanting to discuss with you 
for a long time.” 

So there was a reason for the invitation! Unaccountably 
Nancy’s heart stood still and then raced headlong. 

“It’s a delicate subject,” Alice had the air of one shrink- 
ing from an ordeal. “I want you to take it all right.” She 
was hesitating. There was something sweet and diffident 
about her approach to the subject. “It’s about Warner.” 
She looked up, her gentle face bland and free from any 
malice. “Nancy ... Warner .. . is seeing too much of 
you for his good. You needn’t think I don’t know it. I want 
to be fair with you though. I don’t think you consciously 
mean to . . . but you just naturally get men to like you. It 
was that way even in high school you know. Walt Thomas 


230 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


and the other boys . . . all seemed to like you.” For a mo- 
ment she evaded Nancy’s brown eyes which, wide as full 
moons, were gazing disconcertingly at her. Then she met 
them again with soft blue ones. 

“Nancy,” her voice broke a little, “before you came 
things were just at a crisis with Warner and me. Everything 
was all right. He was happy and contented . . . and then 
you came. Remember, Nancy, I say again just what I said 
before . . . I want to be fair . . . I don’t think you con- 
sciously did anything wrong. If it hadn’t been for the ‘Bee- 
House’ and your being thrown in there so constantly with 
him, this little confession wouldn’t be necessary. But we 
have to accept men as they are, and . . . there’s so much in 
propinguity. .. !” 

Nancy’s lip curled a little. | 

“It isn’t a fair advantage you have had,” the smooth 
melting voice went on, “to be able to see him every day 
that way... .” 

Involuntarily Nancy looked over at Warner on the mantel. 
How substantial he was and strong and decent and sincere! 
A quick flash of tears swept her eyes. 

“I wanted to come straight to you and lay the facts before 
you,’ Alice explained gently, “instead of doing anything 
underhanded. That’s not my way. I thought maybe .. . if 
you understood . . . you’d do what was right. I’ve always 
thought of you as one of my best friends and it seemed to 
me the honest thing to do was to throw myself on your 
mercy ... as humiliating as itis . . . for it isn’t easy, you 
know, to discuss this with an outsider . . . and tell -you that 
before you came we were practically engaged . . . there was 
a tacit understanding even if we had no formal engagement.” 
She was very careful to put it honestly. “I can’t think for 
a moment you did me an intentional wrong . . . but being 
there with him every day .. .” She brushed tears from her 


*. 


ALICE RINELAND PERFECTS A PLAN 231 


gentle eyes with the daintiest of handkerchiefs. Nancy sat 
tense, unmoving. 

“It was humiliating, Nancy . . . back at Warner’s home 

. in all the questions from his mother and Eleanor . . . 
to have to evade anything about your growing friendliness to 
him and your being with him so much.” By those little sur: 
~reptitious touches of which she was past mistress, she was 
deftly crediting all the activity of the friendship to Nancy. 
“And all the time that tacit understanding between us and 
between the families. Papa, you know, worships the ground 
Warner walks on. You heard him to-night. He has 
planned so much on . . . on us. And he'll do so much 
for Warner. You can see for yourself how he is training 
him in the business. He talks everything over with him 

loans and notes . . . grooming him for his own 
place when he retires.” She explained the fact gently to 
Nancy, as to a child. “It will all be his . . . someday... 
Nancy .. . the bank, the farm, the house. Leaving myself 
out of it, rising above my own feelings, Nancy, merely to 
look at Warner’s best interests . . . his future life and suc- 
cess . . . it seems too bad that he should . . . should risk 
his future for a little mild boarding-house-table flirtation. 
Now doesn’t it . . . honestly . . . dear?” 

She paused and when there was no answer from the slim, 
brown-eyed girl, curled up in the big chair, she took courage 
and went on, “I’ll put my pride in my pocket, Nancy, and 
admit there’s something about you that must be fascinating 
to him. He’s even made that clear to me . . . that when 
you’re with him you’re more or less physically attractive 
to him... .” 

Nancy’s lithe body sprang into tenseness. Her eyes 
flashed. Her hands clenched into hard fists. A fury seized 
her that she was compelled to listen to this insult. She had 
not felt that temper in years. It seized her now, rolled over 


232 . THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


her in red throbbing waves of anger. All the little soft 
veiled thrusts, all the mean gently-given innuendoes of all 
the years flew to her mind like the return of a thousand 
buzzing stinging insects. They infuriated her. She wanted to 
injure the soft white girl sitting there and saying those 
things. Her fury shook her, carried her to her feet. She 
bent before it like the wheat of her prairie before an on- 
slaught of the southwest burning wind. It unloosed her 
tongue. “You're lying, Alice! Warner Field has never dis- 
cussed me with you that way . . . not at all ... . not ever 
. at any time. You’re just suggesting it . . . like you al- 
ways do... suggesting little soft slippery lies that one 
can’t refute. I had rather see a person sin frankly and regret 
nobly, than go through life small and underhanded, pricking 
people with their little needle thrusts. This time I’ll not 
take them like I was a weakling. I used to take them all — 
. all the little mean underhanded things you used to say 
. and swallow them ... I thought] hadto. ... I was 
afraid of you even as achild . . . because you were rich and 
we weren’t . . . because you had lovely things and I didn’t. 
But I’m not afraid of you any more. ‘This is the last time 
you'll ever say things like that to me . . . I won’t take them 
any more. You’re not telling the truth and you knowit... . 
Warner hasn’t ever humiliated me in his conversation to 
you ...notever... youlie ... do you Meare aae, 
“Nancy!” She heard it as plainly as though it had been 
spoken in reality. If it lay in the realms of the subconscious 
it did its work just as effectively. Her body still tense, her 
face livid, her hands clenched, she whirled toward the pic- 
ture on the mantel. The steady, severe eyes of Warner Field 
called to her. ‘‘Nancy!” they said, “be quiet.” She stood 
for a moment gazing in wonder at the picture. Then all her 
anger left her, like a garment dropping away. She sank 
back in her chair, quiet, contrite, humiliated. Her temper! 


ALICE RINELAND PERFECTS A PLAN 233 


She thought she had conquered it long ago and now it had 
risen to confront her, a stark, strong, mean, unlovely thing 
of which she was ashamed. 

Alice, whose handkerchief had covered her face during the 
tirade, stole a surreptitious glance through her fingers. She 
had gone too far. Very well, she had one card left, the sur- 
prising thing that her mother had told her last fall. “Don’t 
use it,” her mother had said, when they planned this con- 
versation, “unless it becomes necessary.” It seemed neces- 
sary. Her hands fell away from her face and little flecks 
of green covered the blue of her eyes. Her mouth was a 
hard straight line. She looked like her mother. “Maybe 
you don’t believe it, Nancy,” her voice was soft and low. 
She spoke without anger as though showing Nancy how a 
lady would act in a trying scene. “Maybe it is hard for you 
to believe that any man could like another girl when you 
are around. But if that’s hard for you to believe, it isn’t 
going to be at all hard for Warner Field to believe what I 
shall tell him about you . . . why you left your home hur- 


riedly four years ago. Did you take it with you . . . East, 
to college . . . the brown shawl, Nancy? Why don’t you 
show it to Warner . . . and tell him all about it?” 


The color dropped away from Nancy’s face. She sat 
staring at the-girl on the davenport. “I didn’t know any 
one knew, Alice,” she said quietly. 

Just outside the living-room door draperies, Mrs. Rine- 
land slipped away as softly as the shadow of a hawk moves 
over the prairie at dusk. 

For a few moments there was no sound in the room, 
Alice, examining the lace of her handkerchief, looked up 
through her lashes. Nancy sat unmoving with no words. 
Then she stood up and threw out nee hands in a helpless 
sort of gesture. “Well, I’ll go . . .” she said, but it was as 
though she spoke to Warner on the mantel instead of Alice. 


234 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE © 


“T haven’t had the courage to face it. But now... I'll 


99 


go. 

She turned back to Alice. “I’m sorry for my temper,” she 
said quietly. “I thought I was over such childishness. It 
was unforgivable after your hospitality. I shall suffer for 
it all the days to come, far more than you. I’m going ... 
right away . . . before Warner gets back . . . to-morrow, 
I think. But I want you to know, Alice, that neither thing 
you have told me is the reason for my going.” She spoke 
without emotion, not angrily, but as one giving ordinary 
facts. “It’s not fair to myself to leave, letting you think 
that you have accomplished this by bringing me here and 
telling me what you have. I’m not unselfish enough to go 
without telling you that I can see through you like tissue 
paper. I’m not going to give you that satisfaction for I’m — 
not that quixotic. I’ve bungled things dreadfully . . . and 
Pll go. But what you’ve said to-night about your ‘tacit un- 
derstanding’ and what you say about the shawl and my leav- 
ing home hurriedly . . . neither of those reasons would 
have the weight of a feather if things were different. It 
would be for Warner to say about the ‘understanding’ and 
no one would be more fair and kind and just about the other 
than he. I’m going . . . but neither cause you’ve given is 
the reason.” 

This was the time, now, to tell Alice about Mr. Farns- 
worth. This was the moment to spring her news . . . the 
high laughter-provoking moment in which to crow over 
Alice. But she had no heart for it. In some inexplicable 
way Alice seemed to have won. In some manner, not readily 
to be grasped, it was Nancy who seemed to have met defeat. 

Alice rose too. “I want you to do what you think is best, 
Nancy.” Seeing that the thing was working out well, com- 
ing her way, she was gracious. It never paid to be anything 
other than courteous. “I’ve just laid the facts before you. 


ALICE RINELAND PERFECTS A PLAN 235 


I’m sorry you fail to believe me.” Her eyes were soft, dove- 
like, blue. “But it’s lovely of you to settle it this way. I’ve 
always said that at heart you were good and noble.” 

Nancy sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Never mind 
the noble stuff,” she said dryly. 
. “Just one thing more I’m asking before you go . . . and 
it means a lot to me...” Alice threw herself again on 
Nancy’s mercy, “that neither Warner nor Papa need know 
of this talk. You can imagine how humiliating it would be 
to have either one know.” 

“You needn’t worry,” Nancy’s head was high. “Ill not 
tell your father and [ll not . . .” if she drooped a bit it 
was only momentarily, “Ill not even see Warner.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 
NANCY LEAVES MAPLE CITY 


to see Mr. Rineland in his office. All the way down- 

town from the “Bee-House” she was dreading to tell 
him about breaking her contract. But the interview proved 
to be short and Mr. Rineland very kind. “I’m sorry, Nancy, 
to have you leave this way.” He followed her out into the 
bank lobby as though there were more he wanted to say. 
“And I hope you will be very happy. Any young man who 
holds your love is fortunate.” Nancy did not tell him that 
the man was not young and held only her respect. But 
when she was starting away again and he told her confiden- 
tially, “Of all the little girls who used to come to see Alice, 
I liked you best,” she could even smile a little at that. 

There was a great deal for Nancy to do, so many things, 
in fact, that she was too busy to think much about her own 
mental reactions. She telephoned Aunt Biny next, so that 
her leaving would not be too abrupt. While the first bell 
was ringing, she slipped into Miss Gunn’s office and told 
her. Miss Gunn stood by her west window and looked 
silently out at the sodden day. Stiffly she put an arm unused 
to caresses around Nancy’s slim boyish shoulders. “Nancy, 
I had a lover once,” she said, simply. “He died . . . and 
after that I gave my boys and girls my whole life.” 

Nancy looked up at Miss Gunn; plain, middle-aged, in- 
tellectual. And Miss Gunn once had been young and eager 
and loved a man. “Anyway,” Nancy said a little bitterly, 
“if he’s dead, he belongs to you.” 

236 


6} N Tuesday morning Nancy made an early appointment 


NANCY LEAVES MAPLE CITY 237 


Yes, she could teach all day, she told Miss Gunn. The 
children wouldn’t need to know anything about it. It would 
be better that way. She was sorry to upset the room again. 
But did Miss Gunn understand that because she was to go 
she wanted to do it quickly while she could? Quite sur- 
prisingly, Miss Gunn, who put school before everything else, 
understood. 

Nancy taught hard. She tried to crowd into those few 
hours all the things she would like to have done for the chil- 
dren. She loved them all... the plain, the pretty, the 
dull, the vivacious. Every little face was like the face of a 
child to its mother. She looked hard at each one so that 
she might never forget it. And she brooded over them 
during the swiftly moving day as a mother broods over her 
children during the swiftly moving years. Every real teacher 
experiences the sensation no matter how troublesome her 
charges have been. 

The same little problems confronted her, but now she 
wished she might stay to solve them. Johnny Bornheimer 
cried at his desk and would not tell her why he cried. At 
noon she took time to run into his home. Mrs. Bornheimer 
was sewing. “Aren’t you having lunch?” Nancy asked. 
Mrs. Bornheimer looked over at Johnny. “Not this noon. 
But to-night we’re going to have a fine supper, aren’t we, 
son?” 

Nancy wrote her a check for half a month’s salary. “I 
don’t need it at all, really I don’t,” was her answer to the 
woman’s protestations. “I’m going away. Oh... I tell 
you, Mrs. Bornheimer . . . there’s an awful lot of un- 
happiness in the world. If it isn’t death it’s something else.” 

At lunch the boarders discussed a colonial party for 
Washington’s Birthday. They asked Nancy for suggestions, 
and because she wanted to slip away without any fuss she 
entered into it as though she were to be there. 


238 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


The afternoon at school passed quickly. Never had the 
hands of the round walnut-cased clock on the schoolroom 
wall gone so fast. It seemed no time at all until three- 
thirty had arrived. All the books and working material 
were put in the desks. Roxy Swanson with mature fore- 
sight informed Miss Moore that she thought they ought to 
begin reading “Robinson Crusoe” to-morrow. She did not 
know there would be no to-morrow there for Miss Moore. 
Nancy opened the hall door where the rows of rubbers stood, 
wet and muddy, and the little coats hung. The children 
stood up by their desks. Nancy bowed her head. The chil- 
dren bowed theirs. 


“Now the day is ended [they sang, earnest, a little off-key]_ 
Night is drawing nigh. 
Hear us in Thy mercy. 
Hear Thy children’s cry.” 


She had to bite her lip and make herself say it ins 
“Good night, children.” 

“Good night, Miss Moore.” 

She slipped out soon after the children. There was so 
little time before the six-fifteen. At the “Bee-House” she 
finished the packing she had begun at noon and ’phoned for 
the baggage man and a car to take her out home. She said 
good-by to Essie and Miss Ann and Miss Rilla. Before she 
left, Helen Blakely came from school, so that she saw her 
for a few moments, too. Miss Rilla was completely upset. 
She shed sincere, if ready tears. Miss Ann looked at it more 
practically. “Rilla, there’ll be somebody else along soon 
to take that plate at table. I’ve always found it so. When 
one leaves, another one turns up to fill the place.” 

“No,” said Miss Rilla with unaccountable firmness. 
“There'll never be anybody along to take Nancy’s place.” 
Poor Miss Rilla! Life had been full of inhibitions for her 


¥ 


NANCY LEAVES MAPLE CITY — 239 


and Nancy had seemed all the lovely things which she had 
dreamed and missed. 

As soon as Nancy got home she sat down on the old couch 
in the sitting room beside Aunt Biny. Uncle Jud stood over 
by the big coal burner. He shivered a little while Nancy 
talked. “I’m going right away to-night ... on the six- 
fifteen if I can make it,” she told them. “You mustn’t feel 
badly about it. It’s better all around for me to go now. 
Even if I stayed, you would be leaving by the fifteenth of 
March you know. And I’ll come back to see you before you 
go to California. That will give you a nice long visit with 
the Indiana relatives ...from March to September. 
When you get back here you go right to the ‘Bee-House’ and 
stay there until you’re ready to start West.” 

“Mattie wanted we should come there,” Aunt Biny said. 

“Maybe you would like that better.” 

“When will you be married now?” 

Nancy did not know. Quite soon she supposed. They 
would probably go abroad. 

No one said anything more. The homely old room sud- 
denly grew quite still and desolate. The silence and the 
loneliness seemed a tangible thing, cold and very cruel. 
Nancy put it into words. It is the young who can talk. 

“That’s a long way apart for us to be, isn’t it... you 

in California and I in Europe, and the old home . . . miss- 
ing us... in between? Well,” she stood up and threw 
out her hand in that little characteristic gesture, “there’s 
very little time . . . and I want to write a note.” 

Uncle Jud put on two coats and a muffler and went out and 
sat in the doorway of the harness shed. Near him there 
were old walnut shucks piled high around a stump in which 
the hatchet was sticking. Water stood in pools in the dirty 
snow of the barnyard. Over in the chicken yard the flock 
crowded against the gate waiting for supper. After a while 


— 240 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


he got up slowly and went after the cows in the upper lot. 
It seemed a long way up there. Maybe he’d better keep the 
stock in the barnyard until the sale. 

Nancy slipped up the narrow built-in stairway to her 
room, went to her desk and wrote hurriedly to Warner. 
There was no time to make a nice choice of words or weigh 
their meaning. Once or twice, only half-seeing, she stopped 
to stare out of the queer window that looked three ways. To 
the west the old straw stack where she had first seen him was 
sodden, snow-spotted. The maples stood stark and unlovely 
unless one loved, as Nancy did, the gaunt strength of the 
half-human things. To the south the road beyond the cot- 
tonwoods looked streaked and soiled like a dirty ribbon. 
To the east the low rolling hills lay bare and sullen and un- 
caring. 

When she had finished and taken her bag downstairs, she 
found Aunt Biny still sitting on the edge of the lumpy couch, 
her crutch by her side. At the sound of the stair door 
opening, Aunt Biny roused herself as from a stupor. 
“You'll want something to eat. I'll go get it right away,” 
she got up stiffly and went out to the kitchen, her crutch 
pounding on the wooden floor. 

There was no time to linger. Nancy sped down through 
the dirty snow to the old cabin and put her letter in the 
empty cupboard where the diaries had been. “That’s senti- 
mental,” she told herself, “like children playing post-office.” 
But she wanted to think of Warner reading it there in the 
little house rather than with his mail in town. She took 
a moment to look into the drawer under the cupboard, lock- 
ing it again hurriedly as one shutting away an undesirable 
thing. 

Walt came for her in the car. The wheels had skidded 
some when he came over, so he decided to put on the chains. 
Nancy said good-by to Aunt Biny. Tears came to her eyes, 


NANCY LEAVES MAPLE CITY At 


but she would not let them flow. She had a feeling that if 
she allowed them to start, they would turn her into an un- 
controllable Niobe. So she patted the old woman’s cheek 
and said lightly, “Be real gay and giddy with your money, 
Aunt Biny. Buy some new clothes and have a good time. 
You deserve it.” 

“I hope you'll be very happy, Nancy. Every girl de- 
serves that.” 

Nancy forced a smile through the unshed tears. “I'll be 
happy, Aunt Biny.” 

Uncle Jud was still down by the barn. In moments of 
- great emotion he always sought the outdoors. So Nancy 
sped down there. | 

“Well, Uncle Jud, you’re not angry this time?” 

He shook his head. He wanted to tell her how much he 
thought of her, that he loved her even when he was crossest, 
what a comfort it had been to have her there again, how he 
hoped she would be happy all her life, how he wished she’d 
take care of Aunt Biny if anything ever happened to him. 
But he only stood stupid, inarticulate, miserable. It is hard 
for an old man to say what is in his heart. 

Walt and Nancy turned out of the lane road. Beyond the 
long row of Lombardy poplars, they stopped at Walt’s for 
Nancy to say pood-by to Mattie. Mattie came out of the 
kitchen door, almost unhumanly huge, but walking lightly, 
springily down to the car. She had a package of food for 
Nancy. Walt reddened a little. “Ma, Nancy won’t eat out 
of a box. She goes in a diner.” 

At the sight of Mattie’s crestfallen expression, Nancy 
leaned out of the car and kissed her big fat cheek, so 
cushionlike that it seemed pneumatically blownup. “Yes, 
I will. Thank you so much, Mattie.” She was leaving 
enough hurt feelings in her wake without adding Mattie’s 
to the list. 


242 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


They went on into town, both thinking of that other 
time she had gone away. His eyes on the road, Walt 
drove carefully through the slush, while Nancy told him 
about Mr. Farnsworth. 

“Not the Farnsworth?” 

“Yes.” 

“Gee! You'll fly high.” Ina moment he added casually, 
“T kind of thought it was going to be Field. Did he know 
about this?” si 

“No. [just wanted to be free, Walt, a little longer . . . 
and so I never told any one but Aunt Biny.” 

“You ought to have told Field, Nancy.” | 

“Oh, Walt, I know it now. I’ve written it all to him in 
a letter down in the cabin.” 

“Tf I couldn’t have you, I’d rather have it be Field than 
any one I know. This will hurt him, Nancy.” 

Nancy looked out over the gray, soggy country. “Warner 
isn’t the only one that it will hurt.” During the few minutes’ 
wait at the station, Nancy said: “Essie works awfully hard, 
Walt. She’s such a good girl. Go to see her sometimes 
this spring and give her a few little pleasures.” 

Walt reddened a little, and said that he would. 

The train was on time. Nancy had scarcely settled her- 
self when she was skirting Tinkling Creek and then passing 
opposite Uncle Jud’s place. She could see the stark 
cottonwoods and maples, the outbuildings, the straw stack, 
the house. For just a moment the gray of the sullen clouds 
in the west lifted and a soft tint of light lay in rose 
pools on the low hills and the prairie. : 

As the train curved to change its direction, she looked 
back toward town. The last thing she saw, silhouetted 
against the pink light, was the Italian Renaissance house sit- 
ting up on three terraces, like a lady with her skirts pulled 
up from the street. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
THE MEETING 


Wi inca was passing through the city of Chicago 


but not stopping now. ‘That was to be on his re- 

turn. If all went well, he would be back the first 
of the week to stop for a few hours and with some definite 
- thing to tell the friend to whom he owed the debt. His debt! 
That old man of the sea! For the first time he would be 
able to shake it off. At last he could face Mr. Farnsworth 
and look him in the eye. It was not nice business, this feel- 
ing cowardly and obligated. He would feel decent again and 
confident. All the way East on the fast train he had that 
feeling of elation, that life was very full once more. His 
writing and Nancy! Life was a fine old thing after all. 

In New York he went almost immediately to his publish- 
ers. It was pleasant to come back. “Come back!” It had 
a double meaning. 

Sidney Thompson, one of the associate editors, gave an 
hour to him. J. R. McClough, the illustrator, came into the 
office. Mr. Rankin himself talked with him in the late 
forenoon. They all congratulated him on his best work. It 
had a vein running through it which his earlier work had 
not, they told him . . . a sympathy, a human understanding 
which made it stand out. They thought it would live. They 
discussed some changes, a redivisioning of the work, and 
talked over the payment. 

Warner left the office with his check. He was ready to 
turn it over, to feed the huge monster of debt that, for over 
a year, had yawned and lashed its tail and before which he 

243 


244, THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


had cowered. Best of all, confidence in himself had re- 
turned . . . that confidence which like blood from his veins 
had oozed forth the last year. And it was Nancy who had 
helped him, not consciously but just by being Nancy. 

Thinking of Nancy, a deep regret seized him for a time 
that he could not keep the money for himself, but he soon 
put the thought aside. Not after those deep distressing 
months of vain endeavor to write something creditable, 
would he spend any moments in regret. 

He spent two days with his mother and sister, Eleanor, out 
at the latter’s suburban home. He had to explain many 
times to his mother how imperative it was that the trip be 
short. He had not been there long until he told them he had 
found the girl for him in Maple City. They were pleased 
about that. They would always be very proud of Alice, 
they said almost together. 

He laughed at that. “But it isn’t Alice,” he told them. 
They couldn’t understand it. They had gained the impres- 
sion from Alice ...! And she had laughingly carried 
off Eleanor’s picture of him. ..! They were frankly 
sorry, a little dubious about the whole thing. They had te 
know all about the girl and only half concealed their doubts 
at her suitability when Warner tried to tell them about 
Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny. Sensing their inability to under- 
stand his rather boyish description of the old folks, he drew 
back into his grave, taciturn self. 

Before he left, his mother called him into her room and 
talked to him. It was hard for her to speak about it, but 
she wanted Warner to tell her if he was living up to the 
ideals his father had set for him, whether he was everything 
his father had been. She had his father’s picture in a silver 
frame on her dresser. Warner was glad he had protected 
her, had left her ideals to her. 

It was late Monday afternoon when he got into Chicago. 


THE MEETING 245 


He telephoned at once to the Hyde Park house. It had 
been like home to him in his college days when he had 
been a classmate of Rod Farnsworth’s. Rod was married 
now to an Emily Somebody . . . and they lived in the old 
home with Mr. Farnsworth and Fay. It was odd to think 
of Rod married. Fay, the sister, had not married, at least 
not that he had heard. She might have done so during the 
past year, for he had not communicated with the family 
at all. Only once had he written . . . the time he mailed 
his interest on the note from Omaha. So long as he was 
under that deep obligation to Mr. Farnsworth with no im- 
mediate likelihood of paying the debt, he had felt like stay- 
ing away and keeping silent. When the time came that he 
could begin to cancel the obligation, then he would resume 
his friendship with them. And the time had come. He felt 
a deep thankfulness that he had hold of himself again. 
When he ’phoned the house, Mr. Farnsworth himself 
answered, said he was delighted to know Warner was in 
town, told him to come right out. His tone was welcoming 
and cordial. It gave Warner a pleasurable feeling to think 
of the renewal of the old friendship with the Farnsworths. 
In a world of work and worry it was nice to know old 
friends were interested in you, that old ties could hold. 
Unlike the Rineland residence in Maple City with its 
ostentatiously new appearance all the furnishings in the 
Hyde Park mansion had a mellowed look. Its rugs and 
tapestries and rich carvings had been picked up from time 
_ to time in the countries which produced them. Money, to 
_ the Farnsworths, was not a new experience. It had been 
their background for three generations. 
Warner had a renewed sense of that mellowed luxury and 
the old-world atmosphere of the place as he was admitted 
_ to the reception hall, with its massive dark wood stairs lead- 
ing to a balcony. There was no further time to gratify his 


246 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


senses with a renewal of the appearance of the delightful 
surroundings, for almost immediately he was being warmly 
welcomed by Mr. Farnsworth. 

John Farnsworth was in his early fifties, heavy, well cared 
for, the prosperous man of the world. Just now he was 
grasping Warner’s hand with both of his own, apparently 
deeply pleased at seeing him. 

“Why did you drop us so unceremoniously, Warner? 
You’ve not been writing us.’ 

. “T couldn’t, Mr. Farnsworth. et until I was ready to 
take up my obligations to you.” 

“The last we heard of you, you and your mother were 
ill in the influenza epidemic.” | 

“Yes, everything seemed to drop on us at once. We both 
had pneumonia following the flu. . . and I topped it off 
with an abscessed lung.” 

“You’re well again?” 

“Thoroughly.” 

“And your mother never learned the truth of your father’s 
affair?” 

“No, and she never will now. That’s what makes me 
most grateful to you.” | 

In the interest of the meeting again both seemed to have 
forgotten to move on. They were still standing. 

“T was glad to do it for you, Warner. From the first 
time you ever came here with Rod, you seemed like one 
of us. It isn’t entirely unselfish to do a thing like that. | 
felt good doing it for you . . . you were so thoroughly 
miserable over it. And besides, don’t discredit my intelli- 
gence. I knew what I was doing. It was a business propo- 
sition, and I was fully aware of your ability to handle it.” 

“T don’t know, Mr. Farnsworth. I’m afraid you didn’t 
realize the risk. The thing struck me like a bolt of light- 
ning. I fell into something of a slump for a while. But 


THE MEETING 247 


from now I can go on. I’ve just made a very satisfactory 
sale and that’s what brings me here.” As though anxious 
to get it over, he took out his check, immediately endorsed 
it on the back of his bill-book . . . gave it to Mr. Farns- 
worth. 

“If you feel that you can renew the note . . . send the 
new one on to me.” A feeling of great relief swept him. 

He put out his hand to the older man. He was not 
leaving. He was even staying until the next morning, but 
the business part of the visit over, he felt free from the 
oppression that had overwhelmed him and very grateful. 
“You know how I feel, Mr. Farnsworth. There’s nothing 
in the world I wouldn’t do for you, if it were in my power.” 

“I believe you, Warner, and thank you. It makes me 
feel as though I had a son . . .” he smiled LAW Rh AN:. 
little more dependable than my own. Not that Rod’s bad. 
He’s just the usual boy brought up the way he was. . . I 
only wish he were unusual.” 

“Oh, Rod’s all right . . . just easy-going.” 

“Now that your own business is over, Warner, I want to 
tell you mine. I’m to be married right after Easter.” 
_ Warner was surprised and he was pleased. Mrs. Farns- 
worth had been dead for a half-dozen years. He was 
moved to put out his hand again. “Why, that’s fine, Mr. 
Farnsworth . . . fine! I’m mighty glad.” 

Behind them the heavy dark wood street door was 
Opening. 
“There are the girls now.” 
_ Two young women stepped in. The first one was F ay 
Farnsworth, already running forward to greet him. The 
other... No! Ii was not so! Nancy was in Maple City. 

“Warner, you’re about to be presented at court. Nancy, 
I want Warner Field to. meet you. Warner... my 
fiancée . . . Miss Moore.” 


248 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


For a moment Warner and Nancy stood carved into icy 
silence. The Confederate soldiers chiseled on the side of 
the rocky cliff are less inanimate and cold. Nancy was the 
first to move. A flood of pity surged over her that Warner 
was shocked and suffering. All the latent motherhood in 
her rushed to protect him. This was the way that he was 
finding out the thing she had kept from him. That she, 
too, was surprised at the meeting counted for nothing. She 
wanted to ease him from the impact, carry all the burden 
herself. She threw out her hands in a little characteristic 
gesture. With all her will power she made herself laugh 
. . . high bubbling laughter. | 

“Why, people ...” she talked fast, naturally, enthusi- 
astically. ‘Warner Field and I know each other . 
well. Hasn’t he told you? He’s been in Maple City, too, 
Isn’t it funny? And introducing us . . . the world is cer- 
tainly small.” 

Saving Warner from visible embarrassment, keeping the 
others from seeing any confusion of his, were her two great 
interests. She had bunglcud things and now she must make 
it as easy as possible for him. Talking against time, throw- 
ing outa perfect smoke screen of chatter to cover any feel- 
ing that Warner might show, she gave him her hand. It 
was trembling as it met his and without warmth. 

Warner partially came to life then, too. He roused his 
stunned mentality to make it understand that it, too, had 
a part to play. 

“T thought you had been in Omaha all this time, Warner.” 
Mr. Farnsworth and Fay were saying it almost together. 

“No,” Warner told them gravely. “This last year in 
Maple City, fifty miles from Omaha.” 

“In the same town with Nancy and met her there?” Fay 
was repeating it to make certain. There was no little ex: 
citement and laughter about it. It was certainly odd. 


THE MEETING 249 


‘Mr. Farnsworth went to the point: “Why didn’t you write 
it, Nancy?” 

Why not, indeed, Nancy! 

“Well, you see,” she threw out her hand in that little 
gesture. She had to think very fast. “It started with a 
joke. When I first met Warner I-told him I knew some 
people who knew him. He asked me who they were and 
Isaid . . . for fun, you know. . . that I’d tell him some 
other time. And then I kept thinking he’d speak of it again, 
and I told myself . . . just for fun, you know . . . that 
I'd never mention it again until he did. And he never did. 
Did you, Warner?” 

_ Warner stood, grave and silent, listening to the excru- 
ciatingly funny joke. “No, I think not.” 

And then Rod and Emily came in, and the smoke screen 
was a little thicker, for Nancy was explaining the joke all 
over rather volubly. 

It was odd but not unduly so. The world was not large 
to the Farnsworths who had traveled into some of its far 
corners. Travel makes distances short, places common to 
all. They talked about it for only a short time. Every- 
body was glad Nancy knew Warner. It made it seem more 
like a little family party. It was nearly dinner time now. 
There were to be.guests for dinner, two young couples, the 
Birches and the Townsends. The eight had been playing 
whist on Monday nights, they explained. Warner said he 
shouldn’t have dropped in so unceremoniously. They 
laughed at him for that. It was too absurd to discuss when 
the had been so much at home there in his college 
days. 

Every one went off to dress. The Birches and the Town- 
sends came. There was just one moment before dinner in 
which Nancy found opportunity to speak to Warner alone. 
As they were ready to go into the dining room, she said 


250 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


hurriedly, “I must see you alone, Warner. I think I can 
arrange a way after dinner.” 3 

Grave and unbending, Warner inclined his head. Nancy 
had a feeling that the Warner she knew had gone to the 
end of the world and this was a strange man of whom she 
knew little and of whom she was afraid. 

And then the ten people were at dinner in the fine old 
mahogany-paneled room. Nancy was gay, talkative, enthu- 
Biastic about nothing. Warner was grave, quiet, courteous. 
The Farnsworths saw no change in either. 

Warner’s was a sense of unbelief, a cold smothering 
numbness of unrealization, the feeling that soon now he 
would awaken. It seemed unbelievable. Nancy’s first 
vague little reference back on the Denning hill, “Oh, I 
know some people who know you,” was the key. Out of 
the world of acquaintances in common... the Farns- 
worths. And Nancy was to marry Mr. Farnsworth. Mar- 
ried to Rod’s father... Nancy. © . wmarriedioy uy 
It throbbed hotly in Warner’s brain and more loudly than 
the gay conversation. When he left the house, he would 
face it alone. At present there was nothing to do but act 
as naturally as possible, make himself talk and smile me- 
- chanically. No automaton was ever more wooden . 
no statue more devoid of feeling. The reserve which was 
natural to him, the graveness which was a part of him, 
now served him well. Wherever he looked, he could see 
Nancy up at the end of the table as in a maze. Sometimes 
she was pouring tea at Aunt Biny’s plain painted table, 
passing the heavy dishes and joking with Uncle Jud. Some- 
times she seemed at the “Bee-House” in her neat school 
suit, sitting up beyond Miss Gunn and arguing gayly with 
old Major Slack. And then his vision would clear and 
she was in a rose chiffon dinner gown at the Farnsworths’ 
beautifully appointed table, just as gay and talkative, with 


7 
¥ 


THE MEETING 251 


that little nonchalant air of not caring for any one or 
anything. Something died within him. 

Nancy’s was a sense of the knife having fallen, the sword 
of Damocles under which she had sat so long before the 
feast. Through her mind ran the thought of the letter lying 
in the little cabin. How futile a document it was! She 
nad pictured Warner reading it in the little house, away 
from other eyes, hearing the thing from the quiet pages of 
the note she had written. And he had heard it here before 
every one. Poor Warner! For the hundredth time she ad- 
mitted that she should have told it all at first in Maple 
City. But she had wanted to feel free in her old environ- 
ment, as free as the wind blowing over the prairie. And 
she had returned less free than she had gone. 

The conversation was fairly general. Once Rod said, 
“How have you stood it out there, Warner? I can imagine 
Nancy getting a kick out of a desert island . . . but not 
you!” 

“Just what do you mean, Rod?” 

“Oh, the two-by-fourness, the smug-lotness of it. I was 
in a little jerkwater town myself once. Was marooned 
there for four days . . . ninety-six awful hours. Was at 
ey great-aunt’s, an old maid in a colonial house. She had 
a canary and a dog. The dog was the most interesting 
person I met there.” 

Warner smiled his slow, agreeable smile. “Nothing hap- 
pened, I suppose, Rod, but the wind blowing and the clock 
ticking ?” 

_ “Yes, it did . . . one thing. They pulled off a fire for 
me. Most comical thing you ever saw. Got out the fire 
department and ran around to an old shack of a house. 
The old man that owned it was running around like a 
chicken with its head cut off. Everybody yelled at every- 
body else. It looked like a musical comedy. One chap 


252 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


ran up a ladder and got the old fellow’s seed corn out. 
Great hero! They carried out a teakettle and turnips and 
a little tin-horn phonograph and muskrat hides. I thought 
I’d die with unholy laughter.” 

Every one laughed. It occurred to Warner that it was 
the same kind of thing he used to write . . . the facetious 
viewpoint of the superior onlooker. For a moment he 
seemed to have a sudden composite view of the Maple 
City community . . . Aunt Biny, her sweet face and her 
crutch and the beautiful things she said were in her heart 
but which she could never get down on paper . . . Uncle 
Jud, wresting from the virgin prairie a garden spot of home 
. . . Miss Ann and Miss Rilla, keeping up the old brick 
house ... the “bore” lying by the dresser, his necktie 
in his hand . . . Doc Minnish fighting death with his old- 
fashioned weapons and Doc Pearson fighting it with the 
new . . . Walt Thomas, clean and decent and hard-working, 
tilling his fields that the Rod Farnsworths might eat. 

He looked over at Rod sitting there at ease, debonair, 
sophisticated, a man who had never constructed a thing 
in his life. He had added nothing to the progress of the 
world, not a line to the world’s literature, not a potato to 
the food bins. He had not captured on canvas the beauty of 
a sunset nor turned a screw in any mechanism. He was a 
spender of other men’s money . . . a critic of other men’s 
art . . . an onlooker at other men’s labor. | 

And then quite soon the dinner was over. A little later 
they were all back in the drawing-room and a maid was 
bringing tables and cards. There was some discussion about 
carrying on the regular game. Fay said they would play 
something else so they could all have a hand. 

“No,” Nancy said decisively. “Warner Field and I are 
not going to play with you. We’re going off by ourselves | 
for at least an hour and have a talk. We know a lot 


| 


THE MEETING 293 


of folks that aren’t intimate friends of yours at all. . . 
the Swansons and the Bornheimers and the Guggenmeiers.” 

Everybody laughed. Clearly Nancy’s manner was no 
different among these people than toward the boarders in 
Maple City. “Come on, Warner,” she said carelessly over 
her shoulder. “Let’s go into the library and take them 
all up in alphabetical order: Albrechts, Bornheimers, Carl- 
sons, Dennings, Englekings, Flachenechers, Guggen- 
Meiers... .” 

She threw back her head and grinned over her shoulder 
at the crowd as it laughed. Warner followed her obediently 
and silently into the library where she crossed the room to 
a deep window seat. A great tapestry flanked the wall by 
the seat. Strangely enough it was a knight taking the 
ribbon from his lady as he went to the fray. 


CHAPTER XXV 
THE END OF THE STORY 


HE moment they were out of sight of the others, 
Nancy whirled to Warner. Swiftly as the sun clouds 
over, her gayety was dropped. Her indolent manner 

became tense, every feature quickened. Her face was 
aflame with its emotion. 

“Oh, Warner, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have had it 
happen this way for anything. I’ve been frantic since you 
came. Not for worlds would I have had you hear about 
it like this. You didn’t say a word about stopping here.” 

“T didn’t know it was necessary,” Warner answered with- 
out rancor, apparently without interest. It did not make 
any difference to him how the news had come .,. . so 
long as it had to come. His arms were folded. He stood 
quietly, gravely, very courteously awaiting her explanation. 
It was as though there was no feeling in him, in sharp 
contrast to Nancy, who seemed all feeling. 

“T blame myself so . . . for everything.” Nancy’s face 
was aquiver with sympathy. “Oh, why has everything I’ve 
ever done in my life seemed to go wrong? bide is the 
matter with me?” 

Warner did not offer any consolation. Unbendink and 
uncompromising, he stood and waited. He seemed the per- 
sonification of courtesy, the essence of indifference. 

“Warner, I’ve written everything to you . . . it’s in 
a letter down in the cupboard in the cabin. You'll find 
it there when you go back. I wrote it Tuesday before I 

254 


THE END OF THE STORY 255 


left.” She spoke swiftly as though she would crowd into 


the short time a world of explanation. If she was moved 
to the depths, Warner was as stony as the carved Neptune 
out in the fountain of the grounds. 

“Why didn’t I tell you everything at first? I blame 
myself so.” It was like Nancy, generous and courageous, 
to be severe in the denunciation of herself. “But because 
I didn’t at first, Warner,” . . . she threw out her hands 


in that old familiar‘gesture, “then I couldn’t at all.” 


Tt would have moved almost any one, but it did not 
move Warner Field. He felt that nothing would ever touch 


him again. “I wanted to spend those months out there 


with Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny, feeling just like the old 


_ Nancy Moore I used to be . . . and so. . . to carry 
out the illusion . . . I didn’t let my engagement enter 


into it. I see now where I was wrong, but I meant no 
harm, Warner.” Her whole being begged for some sign of 
understanding from him, but he would not give it. One 
does not so easily forgive a sword thrust. 

When he would not unbend, Nancy went on stumblingly 
with her explanation. “What I said to-night about it being 


__a joke was really true, at first, too. I saw you . . . just 


once . . . here at the house, nearly two years ago and 
when I found you were in Maple City . . . with appar- 


_eritly no recollection of having seen me before . . . it 
feemed .. . sort of a joke, to keep it from you.” 


“Clever little joke, Nancy,” Warner said dryly. “Nero 
played it on the early Christians.” 

A quick shadow of pain crossed her face. 

“Don’t, Warner! I deserve a lot . . . but not too much. 


1, There are other things,” she steadied her voice, “I want to 
tell you too. Oh... if they'll just leave us alone for 
a little while . . . I can tell you all about everything .. . 
and why things are . . . as they are.” She spoke quickly 


256 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


again. It was as though she must put into the short time 
a world of explanation. “Ill have to begin back with 
my birth, so you'll understand. Even that wasn’t regular. 
I’m a waif . . . Warner . . . a doorstep baby. I’m no 
blood relation at all to Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny. I didn’t 
have any gold locket on me. I didn’t even have the specified 
strawberry mark on my right shoulder.” Nancy would not 
have been Nancy if she had not referred to herself in that 
very way. “I don’t know who I am and neither does any 
one else. I was just wrapped in a brown shawl and chucked 
on Uncle Jud’s porch one summer night. I never knew 
it, though, until the day I was eighteen. No one knows 
how the world crashed around me when they told me.” 

Warner roused himself a little. The diaries, he thought. 
That was what happened the day she was eighteen. For 
the first time he felt a slight sensation in the place of that 
numb indifference which had held him as in a cast since 
his arrival, and the sensation was one of vague relief 
that the thing which had happened on Nancy’s birthday was 
only that. But it did not make much difference anyway. 
Nothing made much difference now. 7 

“To have consistently built up a structure of relatives 
from my babyhood,” she went on with feeling, “and then 
~ to send it crumbling! No one knows the sensation. If I’d 
have been brought up in an orphan asylum I'd at least 
not have had that same anguished experience of the ground 
giving way under me when they told mey’ She had been 
bitter about it . . . was apparently still bitter. 

She turned to him with sudden spirit. “I know one. 
thing, Warner. Some day I’m going to adopt a little girl. 
I’m going to take her when she’s tiny and bring her up| 
to know that she’s not my flesh and blood but that I love’ 
her dearly. For the jolt J had I’m going to do the right | 
thing by some other child.” That, too, was like Nancy, | 


| 


THE END OF THE STORY ie 


Standing near the dark drapery of the window, her head 


thrown back, the curve of her chin and throat outlined 
against the dull blue of the tapestry, she brought to life 


suddenly in Warner the thing he thought she had killed. 


He had a wild moment of wanting her again at any price. 
It was folly to remember that now. 

“I was terribly bitter about it. Right now it seems that 
I should have, could have borne it more philosophically. 
My bitterness now seems a little foolish, certainly super- 
sensitive. But after all, I wasn’t much more than a child 
four years ago, a provincial child, who had lived in a world 
of romance. But if they had only kept it to themselves, 
how much happier I would have been. Uncle Jud’s niece 
was Nancy Moore and IJ always thought she was my mother. 
I had her picture and all her old playthings in the cup- 
board in the cabin and worshiped her memory for eighteen 
years.” To Warner came the swift vision of the picture of 
the girl with flowers in her hair. “What difference would 
it have made to them or any one else to have continued to 
keep the secret? I should have been told at first or not 
at all. Aunt Biny and Uncle Jud had just come home from 


_ Nancy Moore’s funeral back in Indiana on the evening 


they found me wrapped in the shawl by the door in the 
porch of the empty farmhouse. Whether the...” she 
hesitated, then changed the little word . . . “my people, 
abandoning me, knew it was empty . . . well, I’m glad I 
don’t know that. I try to think they knew somebody would 
find me.” | 

In a moment she went on quickly, “Well, it was Uncle 
Jud and Aunt Biny Moore who found me as they came 
home. They took me into the house and sent for Mattie. 
When Mattie came in the door she said, ‘Oh, you brought 


_ your niece’s baby home!’ Aunt Biny told me that she and 


Uncle Jud gave each other a quick look and knew each 


258 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


other’s thoughts. They just kept still and Mattie in her 
talkative way told it everywhere, and they accepted the 
decision that seemed easy. When I was a little girl, the 
people . . . whoever they were . . . sent some money by 
New York draft to Uncle Jud for me . . . conscience money, 
I suppose. Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny never touched it and 
of course it doubled in the years. It made a substantial 
sum. [ tell you this, for it had its part in the quarrel 
Uncle Jud and I had. The day of my eighteenth birthday 
they told me. I’m sorry and ashamed when I remember 
how the day began and how it ended. I’m impulsive and 


hot-headed and Uncle Jud is, too, you know. When I'd 


get angry I’d just lose my head and say things I would be © 


dreadfully sorry for afterward. I’ve been flattering myself 
I had outgrown it . . . but I haven’t. I turned on Alice 
Rineland the other night like a wildcat.” She shrugged 
her shoulder in disgust and then went on, “Aunt Biny is 
so sweet and gentle. I never quarreled with her. But 
Uncle Jud . . . you know him . . . with his fretiing and 
saying things that make you provoked. Every once in a 
while he and I would have a sctap about something. We'd 
say mean horrid things and then we'd both be sorry. He 
never touched me in his life to._punish me . . . would 
just jaw and scold in that fussy way and I’d say saucy 
things back to him. And then we'd both be sorry, although 
neither of us would admit it, and be the best of friends. 
I'd go fishing with him or trapping and stay around out- 
doors. Aunt Biny would never call me in to help her 
at those times. She seemed ‘to want to have us forgive 
each other in that unspoken way.” It seemed good to Nancy 
to tell all these things. She had concealed them so long 
from Warner that now she was profligate in the lavishness of 
her explanations. | 

“The day I was eighteen I had a tea party of girls in the 


| 


THE END OF THE STORY 299 


afternoon . . . Essie and Alice and several others. After 
they had gone, just for fun I went upstairs and put on an 
old blue calico dress, took off my shoes and stockings and 
started out to slide down a straw stack. It was a kiddish 
trick of course and I told myself it was the last time in my 
life ’'d do it. When I came downstairs the folks were 
sitting stiffly in the sitting room and Uncle Jud called me 
in. I had a feeling that something was wrong ... you 
know how you will sense things . . . and Uncle Jud said 
that he had something to tell me. And the thing . . . was 
that. He said he thought he ought to tell me, that he 
thought it was his duty, for beside my knowing the truth 
because I was of age he felt that he didn’t want to take any 
credit for the money in the bank that was mine. For a 
little bit I was too crushed to talk and then I lost my 
head and turned on him.. Poor Aunt Biny . . . she sat 
there white and broken. I think she hadn’t wanted to tell 
me at all . . . that Uncle Jud had been headstrong about 
the decision. I said things to him . . . that he’d lived a 
horrible lie to bring me up that way. He called me un- 
grateful for that. I said I’d rather be ungrateful than 
deceitful and all that sort of thing. All the time neither 
one of us really meant the horrible ugly things we were 
saying. He said that if they were so terrible maybe I’d 
better get out. Aunt Biny just crumpled down in her chair 
at that but Uncle Jud got angrier. All at once it came to 
me that I was of age and that I had this money of my 
own that I hadn’t known about and so the thing was pos- 
sible. I said I’d take him at his word. Aunt Biny tried 
to talk to us, but Uncle Jud said, ‘Let her go if that’s all 
the gratitude she’s got. But she can’t ever darken my door 
again unless she asks our forgiveness . . . nor come into 
this house again excepting down on her knees.’ We were 

really loving each other all the time. If I’d have laughed 


260 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


at him or paid no attention to it, it would all bave blown 
over. But I felt too sore and crushed and angry. So the 
day that began so happily ended . . . like that.” 

And Warner was back again in the cabin reading: “Good- 
by, my prairie! And most of all good-by, Nancy Moore.” 

But Nancy had taken up her story again: “I went up- 
stairs and packed a few things. When Aunt Biny saw that 
I was in earnest . . . that for the first time in my impul- 
sive life I wasn’t going to give in, she got me to promise 
that I’d go to an old friend of hers . . . a Miss Smith 
. .. who taught at Mount Morris. She had visited us 
twice at the farm and I was fond of her. Walt took me to 
the station and I told him what the trouble was all about. 
Walt thought he cared for me and wanted me to marry 
him and live with him and Mattie. Poor Walt... and 
he wasn’t quite nineteen!” Nancy smiled at the recollec- 
tion. “I kept my promise and arrived safely at Miss Smith’s 
in my best outfit that Aunt Biny had made for me. Miss 
Smith took me under her wing and bought me some new 
things and in spite of a list of applicants from wealthy 
families, got me into the school with her. There I was 
with my money. It seemed like a vast sum. It wasn’t, 
of course. I used no judgment. I was crazy for nice things 
after wearing those clothes made from the pattern of Aunt 
Biny’s own girlhood. When I was smaller I was such a 
tomboy that I didn’t care about it but by high school I 
knew the sensation of feeling antiquated. Alice had such 
lovely things always. How I envied her! Even though 
my graduating dress was of the nicest material it was funny 
and different. So... with that craving and the money 
that seemed endless but wasn’t . . . I bought lots of nice 
clothes. I had entered school in a bitter ashamed way 
intending never to enjoy life again. But I wasn’t cut out 
for a martyr.” Nancy smiled ruefully so that Warner 


THE END OF THE STORY 261 


forgot the import of the interview and smiled too. She 
had a swift sensation that he had come back to her from 
some far-away place. “So it wasn’t a week until I was 
making friends and having the time of my life.” Yes, Nancy 
would do that. 

_ “T did have spells of depression, of course, thinking about 
myself. Who was 1? It made me bitter at them . . . my 
parents . . . whoever they were. Were they the covered 
wagon people who had been through the country that day? 
Presumably they were. Was I merely not wanted at all? 
Or shouldn’t they have had me? Or were they too poor 
then to keep me? I’ve tried to think it all out but of 
course I get no satisfaction from going over it in my mind, 
so most of the time I proceed to forget it. But it had its 
effect on me. I’ve never felt stable, if you know what I 
mean. Qh, no,” she added hopelessly, “you can’t know, 
Warner, with your background of ancestors. You’re the 
type of man you're supposed to be . . . like all the great- 
grandfathers behind you. But I... being nobody could 
be anybody ... being nothing could be anything. It’s 
almost as though I had several personalities, in any one of 
which I seemed to fit, but not one of which seemed durable 
or permanent. One of them was the girl who had been 
Uncle Jud’s niece, looking at life wholesomely and clear- 
eyed. One of them was a luxury-loving person, not quite 
so wholesome and a little less clear-eyed, living for nothing 
much but her own entertainment. That Nancy Moore has 
skated on horribly thin ice, at times, has approved of things 
that the other wouldn’t have countenanced, but something 
. . . the thought of her Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny... 
or her early training . . . or the memory of her orchard 
and prairie . . . or something . . . always kept her from 
_ going under.” ¥ 

Nancy did not say anything more for a moment. Out in 


Ss 
262 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


the next room a game had evidently ended for there were 
exclamations and high nervous laughter. Reminded that 
the time was short for her she returned quickly to her story. 
“So many of the girls in school were wealthy. I went 
home with them vacations. I had lots of invitations.” Yes, 
that would be true. She named two of the other homes she 
had been in frequently. They were a well-known financier’s 
and a senator’s. “I had chances to marry . . . a brother 
or two and a guest or two at house parties. But I kept my 
head level and watched for money.” When she saw Warner 
wince under the words she repeated them. “Money, Warner 

. it was all I wanted. I knew that I’d never be happy 
again without all the luxuries I’d had in the girls’ homes. 
It’s better that you should know it. You'll not have any 
illusions to carry back with you.” She stopped, expecting 
some comment, but when he made none she went on: “Fay 
and I were particularly chummy the last two years.” 

The story was getting closer to Mr. Farnsworth. Warner 
found himself bracing his shoulders as though he were to 
encounter a physical object. “My money gave out as of 
course it would the way I was using it. I had to go back 
to Uncle Jud or else go to work. I was too lazy to work, 
too fond of the life around at the girls’ homes. All my 
anger toward Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny had melted ages 
before, but when I would think of the barnyard and my old 
bedroom and the sitting room with the framed presidents 
and Napoleon with the chip off the end of his nose . . . 
and then this. . . .” She threw out her hand to take in 
the lavish surroundings. “So I staged a little play,” she, 
said deliberately. “I sensed how well Mr. Farnsworth had | 
always liked me here with Fay . . . like another daughter 
I supposed.” She seemed determined to hurt Warner, to 
put it so grossly that it would finish his love for her. “So 
I jet him find me quite inadvertently here in the library, 


THE END OF THE STORY  ‘* 263 


erying as though my heart would break . . . and I cried 
all over him and told him my financial troubles. . . .” 
She looked up at Warner, standing there stern and stiff 

. and waiting. “He felt sorry for me, as I had fully 
intended he should . . . and told me not to worry . . . 
that he was going to send me on through school with Fay 
-and finance me just as he did her.” She could not quite 
meet Warner’s eyes, but when she did and saw the expres- 
sion in them she said quickly, “Oh, I’ve been wretched 
enough at times about it . . . accepting so much from him. 
I should have been out taking care of myself, teaching a 
country school, anything that was independent. Essie in 
Miss Ann’s kitchen is more honorable than I. He did as 
he had said . . . and I accepted it all recklessly. Then 
when | had finished, he told me he wanted to marry me. 
Well?” She threw out her hands in that little questioning 
gesture. “What was there to do then?” 

To Warner, standing there grave and unbending, came 
the question, “Was life nothing but debts and obligations?” 
But he did not say anything. There seemed nothing to say. 
After the silence, Nancy went on. 

“He wanted to be married right away, but I. . . I 
didn’t... .” She dropped her eyes from Warner’s stern 
ones. “I wanted to go back first and spend a little time with 
Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny. All the bitterness I felt had 
died away long before and I saw only their kindness to me. 
I knew I would never feel right until I had made some 
sort of reparation to them. After all, they were the only 
_ parents I had ever known. I finally got Mr. Farnsworth 
to consent to it. So, without knowing what Uncle Jud’s 
attitude toward me would be, I went. I got in on the 
evening train and walked out without any one I knew see- 
ing me. I went up to the house and looked in at the window. 
It seemed as though Uncle Jud was reading the same paper 


Se beh THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


and Aunt Biny mending the same stocking. The only dif- 
ference was that they looked so old. I went up on the 
porch softly and curled myself up in as small a ball as I 
could right in the identical spot they had found me before. 
Then I reached up and knocked. When Uncle Jud came to 
the door I said in a high squeaky voice: ‘Baby on your 
doorstep.’ Uncle Jud slapped his knee and roared and 
laughed. Aunt Biny . .. oh, I'll never forget how glad 
Aunt Biny was to see me. It made me feel horrible and 
ungrateful . . . all the contemptible things in the world. 
It seemed nice and homelike and safe to be back. I didn’t 
care whether Napoleon had any nose. . . .” Nancy smiled 
half tearfully. “The next morning I saw you by the straw 
stack.” She sat down in the window seat. It seemed like 
the end of the story. 

They were both silent for a moment, their silence loud 
with the unspoken thought that it was not the end of the 
story but the beginning. 


CHAPTER XXVI 
“GOOD-BY, NANCY” 


N a few moments Nancy spoke again: “I think that 
| Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny have been very happy to 

have me there. I had intended to stay only a few weeks 
but Mr. Rineland came out to see if I’d take the school. 
It seemed a funny thing to do... sort of a lark. You 
know how I act generally . . . on impulse. I thought of 
it as my last free year. I’d see how it would be to work at 
something. I wrote to Mr. Farnsworth that I was going to 
stay until spring. I went at it just for fun. I felt superior 
to everybody. I laughed at everyone and everything. I 
used to laugh behind Alice’s back whenever she talked in 
that soft, lovely, large way about her gowns and things 
. . . knowing what I could have. Noble character, am 
I not? I planned to spring it on her sometime at the end 
of the year . . . crow over her . . . make her feel foolish 
over the things she had said.” Nancy, on the window seat, 
cupping her chin in her hand, looked up. “But when I 
eft, I didn’t . . . feel like it.” 

Warner made no reply. 

“Well,” she threw out her hand, “it proved to be a happy 
year. All of the nice things in life aren’t the luxurious 
ones. I’ve learned that. Mr. Farnsworth, with all his 
money, can’t buy a lovelier picture than the one you see 
from the farmhouse when you look over the rolling hills. 
And he can’t hire a finer singer than the wood thrush that 
sings along Tinkling. Creek. - And people .. . they’re 
no different. Their clothes and their surroundings and © 

265 


266 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


their degrees of sophistication are . . . but vital things 
. . . their joys and hopes and sorrows aren’t, you know. 
Rod and Emily won’t think any more of their baby, when 
it comes, than Gus and Jen Carlson do of theirs. And there 
isn’t a woman that I know anywhere with a keener intellect 
or better judgment than Miss Gunn or one with a finer 
sense of sympathy toward humanity than Miss Rilla. It 
was a nice year.” She repeated it wistfully. “After I took 
the school I never dreamed of doing anything else but 
staying it out. But the night after you left . . . it seemed 
best not to.” 

For the first time, Warner spoke quietly: “You stayed 
too long, Nancy.” 

She put up her hand to ward off something and then 
dropped it as though there was no use in evading it. “Yes, 
Peknows 01047 

There was laughter again in the other room and a man’s 
voice rose and fell teasingly. 

They did not speak for a few moments, Nancy on the 
window seat, or Warner standing, straight and stern and 
forbidding. Then the girl went on again. “I left on your 
account. I thought it wouldn’t be so very hard for me. 
Even at the last I thought I was doing it more for your 
sake . . . than mine. I kept telling myself on the train 
that when I got back here where everything was easy and 
pleasurable and lazy . . . I could forget a lot of things 

. . burn my bridges, you know. But,” she averted her 
head, “there are some bridges that won’t burn, some things 
one doesn’t forget. . . .” She was at confessional before 
the altar of truth. “And then to have you stop here! 
Things are tangled . . . terribly, Warner, unless . . .” 
she ventured it . . . “there’s a way to unravel them?” 

Warner had that same choking sensation that had over- 
whelmed him when he discovered his father’s affair, a 


“GOOD-BY, NANCY” 267 


feeling that the thing was beyond enduring. Love was like 
a presence, a living, breathing, vital presence. It stood 
near him, humble, expectant, awaiting the verdict. The 
brown of Nancy’s eyes, the warmth of her hair, the curve 
of her mouth, that lovely line of her throat . . . all called 
to him. 

“No,” Warner said, “there isn’t any way to unravel them.” 
The presence near them drooped a little but it did not move. 
Love does not come and go at the snap of a finger. 

“Maybe. . . .” The nearness of it, like a third per- 
sonality, was making Nancy bold, “he has always been 
extremely kind to me . . . if I went to him and told him 
puaeyou!,).. that T° t).)47? 

Warner was in a trench again, making himself prepare 
to go over the top. He had to summon every atom of 
courage that he possessed. 

His voice sounded harsher than he meant it to be when 
he said, “No, he mustn’t even know it.” The statement 
hung heavily in the air, discordant, rough. Nancy looked 
up startled. To Warner she suddenly seemed very small 
and childish. He sat down on the seat beside her. “This 
_is the reason, Nancy,” he said gently. “A little over a year 
ago my father was found dead in his bedroom with his 
pistol by him. He had been cleaning it. The evidence was 
all there . . . some polish, some waste. It was very clear. 
He had been cleaning it and it had gone off. My mother 
was prostrated. She was wrapped up in him. He was in 
good health and had a fair law practice. There was noth- 
ing in the world to point to self-destruction. Over and 
over she told me how he had jcked at the dinner table. . . 
some plan he had made for the next day. But I know. He 
took his life. He couldn’t face what was before him in a 
month’s time. He was guardian for a young fellow who 
would become of age in those few weeks. He had used 


268 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


the estate money. When I looked over his affairs, I knew. 
I was distracted. My mother’s great love for my father 
and her complete faith in him . . . the complete faith in 
fact of the entire community was before me all the time. 
Every thought I had then, waking or sleeping, was what © 
to do or where to turn. It seemed that I must do something 
to avert the crash. If I could replace the amount before 
the settlement, before any one knew . . . my mother most 
of all. I thought over and over the various men that my 
father knew, Omaha men . . . bankers . . . attorneys 

. - merchants. There was just one man in the world I 
felt might help me. I came on to Chicago, had a talk 
with Rod’s father . . . unburdened myself to him. . . 
asked him if he couid possibly see his way clear to make 
me a loan. He questioned me about it, argued with me 
about the necessity of committing myself, tried to persuade 
me to let the bonding company pay the deficiency, talked 
over my future prospects with me and then made me the 
loan, with not much more to show for it than a piece of 
paper that was worth about what wall paper was worth. I 
took out insurance for the amount in his favor to cover it 
if I died. And if I lived, the work of my life was pledged 
to him until the debt was canceled. I was in such a hurry 
to get back to Omaha and fix the matter up that I was 
only here with him an hour or so.” : 

“That was the time I saw you,” Nancy said listlessly. “I 
was on the stair landing when you left.” 

“Following my return to Omaha my mother and I had 
those long illnesses. When I was up and out, try as I 
would, I couldn’t get back to writing. Something hung 
over me constantly . . . the enormity of the debt . . . or 
rather the worry over the payment of it. With the payment 
of it depending on my brain work and the brain refusing 
to do its work . . . I got into an awful slump. It was just 


“GOOD-BY, NANCY” 269 


at that time that I ran across Mr. Rineland and decided to 
take up his offer to go into the bank. Then last fall I 
seemed to get hold of myself again. You’re more or less 
responsible for getting me into the swing of the prairie 
story. They tell me it’s my best stuff.” 

“You know how glad I am, Warner.” 

Neither said anything more for a moment. Then Warner 
spoke crisply, briefly. “To-day I turned over my first 
payment on the principal of the debt. Two hours ago I 
said to Mr. Farnsworth, “There’s nothing on earth I wouldn’t 
do for you if it were in my power.’”’ It finished the matter. 
Warner stood up. Like a book that had closed with a snap, 
the story of Warner Field’s and Nancy Moore’s love was 
ended. 

If Nancy’s heart said, “What of me?” it made no loud 
outcry. But it seemed to shrivel and die. This was life 
then, she was thinking. Things like this had happened to 
other people and now they were happening to her. She, 
who loved life with every fiber of her being, was to find 
life a dried, tasteless thing robbed of its flavor like a 
squeezed skin. 

“Say ... you!” They turned quickly. Rod was in 
the doorway. “If you’re down to Xerxes and Ypsilanti and 
von Zeppelin, come on and take a hand. The Birches are 
having to leave.” 

So they played whist, Warner and Nancy, whose lives 
were being dealt by a merciless hand that did not care who 
held the cards. Dramatic moments in real life do not 
end on the crest of the wave or on the highest point of the 
climax. They slip into troughs of the sea. They slump 
into commonplace activities. They asked inanely, “What 
was the trump?” and said thoughtfully, “If I had played 
low. . . .” Some of. life’s bitterest moments are also its 
most courteous. 


a THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE — 


They put the cards aside and talked for a while. At their 
questioning, Warner told them pleasantly of his new work. 
Nancy made herself relate a few foolish little incidents 
about school. Fay and Rod and Emily contributed occa- 
sionally to the general friendly conversation. Mr. Farns- 
worth said he was booking passage for their trip abroad 
weeks ahead on account of the heavy travel that was pre- 
dicted. Nancy stared at him for a moment as though she 
were seeing him for the first time. Tangled roots! . 

Warner was leaving in the morning. He made no effort 
to see Nancy again. She was the fiancée of the best friend | 
he ever had. That was sufficient. They ate breakfast to- 
gether, all but Emily, who did not come down. There was 
an hour or more after that in the sun room and then it was 
time for Warner to go. He told them not to bother about 
him at all but they insisted on going to the station. Emily 
was not leaving the house but the others went . . . Mr. 
Farnsworth and Nancy and Rod and Fay. They talked 
of trivial, jolly things, a gay little family party seeing an 
old-time friend off. Once Rod turned to Nancy as though 
it had just occurred to him, “By George, that was sort of 
queer, you and Warner running across each other in a 
God-forsaken Nebraska town. It reads like a de luxe 
movie. Warner could pass for the hero all right. He fits 
the part. ant you’re no heroine, Nancy. es re too little 
and sassy.” 

Nancy shrugged her shoulder. “You’re right for once, 
Rod. I’m no heroine.” 

The great train was ready to ride into my West. Warner 
said his farewells. He was pleasant and natural. “Good- 
by, Fay. If you’ll come out to Maple City you can have 
your choice of our star boarders, young Marty Spencer or 
old Major Slack. Good-by, Nancy. We'll miss you at the 
‘Bee-House.’ I know you will be very, very happy. Rod, 


“GOOD-BY, NANCY” 271 


_ Tet me know about Emily. Good-by, Mr. Farnsworth. You 
know how glad I am for you and how I feel about every- 
thing. Thank you again. Good-by, everybody, good-by.” 

Nancy, struggling for composure, fighting for poise, her 
teeth in her lip, saw him go in a mist. 


CHAPTER XXVII 
PAYING THE PRICE 


life. Glibly we say, “In the nineties he did thus 

and so. In such and such a year he moved’ from 
There to Here.” And when we have finished we announce, 
“That was his life.” But it is only the skeleton. The flesh 
and blood are the high hopes laid low or the faith that 
did not falter, the shattered dreams of desire or the love 
that knew no waning. 

Over and over on the train Warner lived the whole ex- 
perience. Back to the odd circumstance that had taken 
him to the little cabin for the week, the childish trick of 
Nancy’s by the straw stack, her offhand way of saying: 
“Oh, I know some people who know you.” Nancy should 
have told him. But after all what difference would it have 
made? Is love to be chained like a captured thing? To 
the sound of the wheels in three states, his mind did not 
cease going over and over again every little item about 
her . . . foolish little things that were not foolish because 
they were Nancy. Above the dark depths of the depression 
into which the shock and disappointment had flung him, 
only one small light gleamed. His belief in himself was 
still left. One constant thing in life remained... . a 
strange exaltation in his writing that Nancy, having taken 
his love, could not take. For long hours on the train he 
went over the various phases of his future plans. One 
decision came clearly and swiftly. He could not desert Mr. 
Rineland through the busy month of March. Temporarily, 

272 


Hi little we tell in the brief outlining of a man’s 


PAYING THE PRICE 273 


then, he would remain in the bank, sucked like a piece of 

rubber on to glass. He thought over the things with which 
he must now fill his life, and the predominating one was 
hard work. 

Strangely enough he did not once think of Alice Rineland. 

The “Bee-House” seemed strangely quiet and monotonous. 
Already Nancy’s place was filled by a blond milliner who 
looked like a duchess ought to look and said, “So I seen 
by the paper.” | 

The news of Warner’s sale had leaked out, through Nancy 
herself before leaving. The effect of it was noticeable in 
the boarders’ attitude toward him. A writer is a distinct 
species. One may sing, paint, model, lecture, or play upon 
many instruments, but let him put his thoughts down upon 
paper and he becomes a member of a queer genus. 

The boarders’ peculiar characteristics stuck out irritat- 
ingly like so many sore thumbs. Genevieve Kendall in a 
pretty new gown, her doll face made up in a way that 
made it completely expressionless, was going to one of 
her unending bridge evenings. George was not there. He 
had gone up to Omaha for a few days. “I’ve about come 
to the conclusion,” Miss Gunn told the table, “that year 
after next I’m going to stop teaching and have some fun.” 
Marty Spencer had an inane story about an organ-grinder. 
Mary Mae Gates was almost at the point of exhaustion. 
“Tf this town hasn’t musical taste by the time I leave, it 
never will have,” she predicted with tired pessimism. The 
Major shot his beliefs at the others as though at target 
practice. Dr. Pearson and Helen Blakely came into the 
dining room together, an odor of romance fairly saturating 
the atmosphere. 

To Warner they seemed alien, people apart, little cars on 
‘narrow-gauge tracks, running around in circles, always 
ending at the places they started . . . themselves. 


274. ~+«+THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Only Essie seemed changed. Warner looked at her a 
second time. There was something vaguely and newly 
pretty in the expression of her thin wistful face. 

In the hall after dinner, Miss Rilla, with moist eyes, told 
Warner how much she missed Nancy. Miss Ann, in pass- 
ing, snorted audibly at the remark. 

Trouble comes in many guises. Always it wears a mask 
and domino but they are of many colors and designs. To 
Warner, the unwelcome guest appeared behind the. irides- 
cent draperies of an unattainable love. 

To old Jud Moore, it wore the somber garments of regret. 
Day and night it confronted him, a ghostly apparition that 
would not down. Morning and evening the sale of the farm 
preyed on his mind. 

For the first time in his life he did not confide in Aunt 
Biny. And the secrecy caused a sort of mental festering. 
Once he said to her crossly, “Dog-goned if I’d care if I 
never saw Californy.” He did not sleep well. In the hours 
after midnight he would waken with a start to face The 
Thing ... . the specter of regret. He would lie and stare 
into the blackness, harried with strange thoughts. They 
were not sensible, he told himself. But, even though he © 
knew this to be true, he could not control them. Almost 
always they were about trees, queer fantastic forms of 
cottonwoods and maples and osage oranges. They seemed 
to be struggling all around him. They assembled into a 
strange intricate vision of a growing forest, whose roots 
on all sides twined and intertwined in the darkness. For 
long hours they seemed striving to exist, crowding, strug- 
gling, intertwining, writhing. When he would fall into 
an unnatural doze the nightmare would close in upon him, 
that queer, incongruous construction of twisting trees, 
branches, leaves, seeds and loam. And always, everywhere, 
roots that twined and intertwined and formed a network 


PAYING THE PRICE 275 


over the room! When he would rise before sun-up the day 
seemed no better than the night. In the night-time he faced 
the abnormalities of dreams. But in the daytime he faced 
the unnaturalness of realities. And the realities were harder 
to bear than the dreams. 

~On the afternoon of the fifth of March, he was in the 
harness shed trying to assemble the contents of the little 
building into some sort of order for the sale. He pulled 
down a few muskrat traps and then hung them back. Dog- 
goned if he wanted to sell the traps . . . might want to 
use them some time. He picked up a box of carpenter 
tools. He wasn’t going to sell them. He'd have to tinker 
around a house no matter where they lived. He pulled a 
popcorn sheller from a corner where it stood and then 
suddenly pushed it back, deciding not to sell that either. 
Half bewildered he looked around him. Well, what in 
tunkit did he want to sell? Nothing. That was it. Nota 
blamed thing. Least of all the land. 

He went out and sat down in the doorway where the 
walnut shucks were piled around the stump in which the 
hatchet was sticking. He could see Ma crossing the lane 
road and going into the old cabin. She had said at noon 
time she was going over there to pack up Nancy’s litile 
playthings. Ma>was going right ahead getting everything 
in shape for the sale next week. Beat all how he couldn’t 
seem to get his part of the articles ready. 

Over and over he told himself that he had done the right 
thing to sell. Mr. Rineland, whose judgment was unques- 
tionable, had said it was best. Ma and he were old. They 
had worked hard. They had a right to get out and enjoy 
life. Well, what was enjoying life? Was it running around 
the country like tramps who had no home? Was it moving 
into town, chucked down. between two other families whose 
conversation you could hear and whose cooking you could 


276 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


smell? Or was it plowing up the cool moist loam in the 
spring with the meadow larks calling to you from the 
fences? Was it planting and watching for the first glimpse 
of green in the fields? Or was it sitting on a bench and 
whittling in front of a grocery store in Maple City? Was 
it husking and harvesting? Or was it milling around the 
country with a lot of restless people a thousand miles from 
home? This was home. There would never be another. 
When his time came to die he wanted to be here. 

It made him think of a dog they had owned years before, 
how it was shot over on the north road beyond Dennings’ 
and how it crawled home on its belly, whining and whimper- 
ing. He wondered what made him recall old Sport to-day, 
crawling home over the pastures, over the fields and along 
fences, crawling home to die under the hop vines in the back 
yard. What if he’d get sick in Californy? He believed he’d 
crawl back too, whining, whimpering, over the desert and 
over the mountains, back to the prairie . . . ! Aching 
with the dull pain of the thoughts that assailed him, he 
got up and went into the kitchen. 

It was at the same moment, over in town, that Warner 
Field started out to the Moore farm to get the letter Nancy 
had written him. Although he now knew all that she had 
told him in it, he still wanted it. His car slipped a little 
through the soft snow and the wind struck him stinging 
slaps on his face. The Lombardys and maples stood bleak 
against the white of the landscape, their north sides etched 
in snow, studies in black and gray and white. The farm- 
yard behind the cottonwoods looked desolate when he 
drove in. A few chickens were huddled together behind the 
wire of their fence. At first heavy coal smoke from the 
house chimney gave the only other evidence of life and 
then he saw some one across the lane road in the two-roomed — 
cabin. } 


PAYING THE PRICE 277 


He left his engine going and crossed over to the cabin 


behind the gaunt, unfriendly cottonwoods. 

When he opened the door he saw that it was Aunt Biny 
in an old black cloth coat with big sleeves. She had on a 
black knitted hood pushed far back on her head so that 
her white hair and the pink skin under the parting showed. 
She had been packing the things from the cupboard and 
her hands were red with the cold. 

When she looked up and saw Warner she reached for 
her crutch and limped toward him quickly. “I’m glad to 
see you. It’s awful lonesome around here and nothing 
_seems right. You knew Nancy was gone, didn’t you?” 

Before Warner said more than a brief “Yes,” she said, 
“Here’s a letter she left here for you.” Warner put it in 
his pocket . . . the most futile document in the world 

. and the most precious. 

“I’m packing all her little stuff,’ Aunt Biny went on. 
“She said to put them in a box and keep it at Mattie’s until 
she got it or sent for it. You don’t happen to know any- 
thing about a key to this drawer, do you? I declare I’ve 
jiggled it and pulled at it, but it’s locked for good. She 
told me to get everything and there’s an old shawl in here 
she’s always thought a lot of. But how can I get stuff out 
of a locked drawer and no key in sight?” 

It seemed odd to Warner to see Aunt Biny so talkative. 
Usually reticent and soft spoken, she seemed changed, to 
be rambling on indefinitely. Warner could not know that 
the great thing that had happened to the old people had 
changed them both, had rendered Aunt Biny nervously 
loquacious and Uncle Jud painfully silent. 

She had more to say, too. 

“I’m worried about Pa. He don’t seem like himself. He 
scarcely says anything all day long and he don’t eat. _ This 
very noon I fixed baking powder biscuits in chicken gravy 


or i oe 
eer 


Ato) THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


and he just minced at it. All his life he’s liked that. Some- — 


times said he never yet had enough . . . and he just tasted 
it. I think it’s selling the place. Seems like he was all 
right for a little while and then one day ... come a 
couple of robins out by the back door .. . and he got 
his coat and cap and went out and walked all over the place 
and when he came in he says, “There’s a meadow lark singin’ 
for all he’s worth in the prairie pasture and a teal flew up 
out of Tinklin’ Creek . .. I saw the green flash on his 
wings.’ Right after that he got that blue acting way. So 
you see it’s the selling. I think he’s Many: he did. I declare 
I don’t know but what I am too.” 

“Don’t you think you’d asi go over to the house ole? 
{t’s too cold out here for you.” 

“I promised Nancy Id do this.” 


“Nancy would want you to take better care of youreeli i 


“That’s so, too. Maybe I had.” 
So Warner took Aunt Biny’s arm and helped her through 
the soft snow and up to the house. On the way, limping, 


short of breath, she still kept on with her confidences. “All ~ 


my life I’ve stood on the back porch and looked over to 
the rim of the prairie and wanted to go on beyond it, and 
the queer thing is, now I’m getting the chance to do it, 
I’m not anxious to. It seems too far away. Id rather just 
stand and look over there and think about it than go. 
Seems to me I’d be happy, if I could know I was going to 
go right on same as usual. Three hens want to set already 
and I’d give anything just to set them as though nothing 


was different and start tomato seeds in a box and put in 


my sweet peas.... ” 


They were at the house now and stepping into the kitchen. © 
On the table lay one of the bright pink sale bills with its — 
list of household goods and farm machinery, its “Warner — 
Field and Martin Spencer, Clerks,” and the date only one © 


PAYING THE PRICE 279 


week away. Uncle Jud was in the sitting room beyond, 
hugging the red coal-burner. 

“Hello there, Field.” 

When Warner went in to him Uncle Jud began talking, 
volubly, a little childishly. All day he had been silent 
and now the thoughts rolled out like water gurgling from 
a jug: “Ain’t this cold for March? Seems like Marches 
get colder every year. This is the last snow of the season, 
maybe, but you never can tell. D’you believe it . . . we 
had a big snow once in April . . . as late as the twentieth. 
I remember the date because Nancy was eight months old 
and had bronchial pneumony. We thought she got it by 
creepin’ around on the cold floor. Doc Minnish come out 
every day for five days. Peach blossoms was out and 
dog-gone it, if they wasn’t all crusted over with snow that 
mornin’. Ma said she never saw such a pretty sight as the 
pink blossoms showin’ through the snow crust. ’N I said 
I'd rather see a bushel of peaches any day than a pretty 
picture. Doc Minnish said if Nancy wasn’t better by the 
next mornin’ when he come he was afraid we couldn’t save 
her.” 
| Warner winced at the words. But the old man rambled 
on. “So me and Ma stayed up all night. Ma put com. 
presses of hot onions on her little chest. I set here by the 
range and baked onions all night in the oven . . . used 
half a bushel I guess. I’d bake ’n Ma would put on a fresh 
hot compress soon’s the old one cooled off. When the first 
light was comin’ in across her crib we saw her breathin’ 
all at once easier and she had a little moist sweat on her 
face, and kinda turned her head and went to sleep. What 
Jo you s’pose Ma did? Set down ’n cried. Worked like 
i windmill all night and then, when Nancy’s better, set 
lown ’n cried. Women’s funny, ain’t they?” 

And Nancy had been a waif . . . left on their porch! 


fee * 
280 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Warner felt a deep tenderness toward the old folks for 
their love and care. 

As soon as he could break in to the old man’s talk he 
told them about seeing Nancy. They were as surprised 
and pleased about it as children. “I wish you’d tell me 
more about Mr. Farnsworth,” Aunt Biny had taken off her 
things and sat down in the old chintz chair with her crutch 
by her side. “Nancy never seemed to tell me very much. 
When she first came, she told me that he was a -wealthy 
man and would be good to her and that she would always 
be well looked after. But that’s about all she ever had 
to say.” 3 

So Warner told them carefully and impartially about Mr. 
Farnsworth. He dwelt so scrupulously on his best points 
that Uncle Jud, sitting with his arms half around the red 
burner, said with pleased finality, “Well, Nancy is marryin’ 
well. She’ll be rich and have everything she wants.” 

“Yes, Nancy will be rich,” Warner agreed. 

Aunt Biny looked out at the wintery landscape. There 
was no sun and the yard looked desolate and unfriendly. 
“But that don’t mean she’ll have everything she wants,” 
she said quietly. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
UNCLE JUD FACES A CRISIS 


Wea had been back in Maple City four days 


and Alice had made no move as yet to see him. 

She had stayed sedately at home, womanly and 
gentle and quiet. She did not even go into the bank. She 
wanted to feel free from responsibility about Nancy’s leav- 
ing and she had succeeded in feeling entirely so. In fact, 
she had worked herself into a mental state of genuine vir- 
tue by arguing that what little influence she had used had 
not turned Nancy’s decision. Nancy herself had said that 
the confidential talk was not the reason for going. So there 
was absolutely no need for any feeling of accountability in 
the matter. As for Warner she would wait for him until 
Sunday. She would give him that length of time and, if 
he had not come of his own accord, she would tell her father 
to have him in for Sunday dinner. 

But Warner came of his own accord. Alice smiled softly 
to herself when she saw him step into the big living room. 
And she smiled at Warner. There was nothing roguish nor 
mischievous in one of Alice’s smiles. It was all soft and 
sweet and womanly. 

It was on Saturday evening that Warner went up to the 
Rinelands’. One had to move about and do something, even 
if part of one had died. After all the Rinelands were old 
friends and they would notice his continued absence. As 
he went down the “Bee-House” steps, he passed Walt 

281 


282 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Thomas turning on the walk that ran around to the back 
of the house. Walt’s car was out of commission and he 
had walked in to town over the snow-crusted roads. 

“Hello, Walt.” 

“Hello, Mr. Field.” 

They paused and stood a little Uncen aaa as though there 
were more they ought to say. But they did not say it. 

“Cold night, Walt.” 

“You bet.” 

Up at the Rinelands’ Warner found all three in ithe big 
living room before a leaping fire in the grate. Mr. Rine- 
land, immaculate and dapper, was reading the paper. Alice 
was at the piano. Mrs. Rineland, in a beaded dress and 
beadlike earrings, was working on a beaded purse. She 
sparkled and jangled whenever she walked. Warner had 
a swift feeling of desire that with these old friends he 
might be able to find surcease for the soreness of heart that 
possessed him. 

He had been there but a few moments when Alice re- 
marked casually, “And Nancy has gone back to her friends 
again? To Chicago, Father said.” 

“Yes. I saw her for a few hours there on my way home.” 

Alice was as dismayed as she was surprised. She had to 
be very careful indeed in what she would say next. So 
she only asked courteously, “You did?” 

“Yes, I found she knew the same family I had known 
well in college days . . . the Farnsworths. Rod Farnsworth 
was a classmate of mine and Fay Farnsworth was a class- 
mate of Nancy’s. She was there with Fay when I stopped. 
John R. Farnsworth, Rod’s and Fay’s father, has been a 
sort of adviser of Nancy’s while she was East. He has 
been a widower for several years and now he and Naney 
are to be married right after Easter.” 

There was no need of assumption now. Alice’s amaze- 


> a 


UNCLE JUD FACES A CRISIS 283 


ment was genuine. “Mr. Farnsworth . . . the big manu- 
facturer?” 

eV es.” 

“Why, Nancy was here all one evening, the night before 

she left. We had the loveliest visit . . . like two chums 
will . . . over everything.” Alice’s voice was melting. 
“She told me she was going . . . but she never breathed 
the reason . . . the little minx! She merely gave me to 
understand she was tired of us all here. Father, it was to 
_be married that Nancy went away.” 
“Yes, she told me so the morning she left, but she asked 
me not to say anything about it just then. And it’s John 
R. Farnsworth . . . that is a piece of news. Nancy is 
doing well. I’m glad, I’m sure. Of all the little girls who 
used to play with Alice, I liked Nancy best.” 

They had scarcely finished the subject when there was 
some one at the door. Mrs. Rineland in her glistening, 
jangling beads answered the knocking. To her surprise 
and irritation old Jud Moore and his wife stood there asking 
for Mr. Rineland. She was ushering them with half dis- 
guised reluctance toward the library when Mr. Rineland 
came. 

“Well! Well! It’s Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny. Come 
in. Come in. Tve always wanted to have you here in the 
new home. . . .” He had their hands, was drawing them 
into the living room. “Alice! Warner! Here are Uncle 
Jud and Aunt Biny Moore!” 

“Of all things!” Alice said in her low soft voice to 
Warner. “The butter woman!” 

“I’m glad you came to see us before you left.”” No one 
could question Mr. Rineland’s cordiality. “I’ve always felt 
we didn’t get together enough in a social way . . . we 
old-timers. Remember how we used to go in lumber wagona 
twenty miles and more to have a good time? We've lost 


284 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


all that old spirit of getting together. Everything is busi- 
ness now . . . and even the old pioneer families have 
drifted apart.” | 

“I cuess it’s business this time too, Mr. Rineland.” Old 
Jud Moore faced him. “No,” he shook his shaggy gray 
head. “We won’t take off our things.” Aunt Biny with 
her crutch sat down on the edge of an overstuffed chair, 
but the old man stood and nervously twisted his thick cap 
in his huge hands. 

“I got to talk to you about the place.” It burst Gren 
him as though catapulted by some great hidden force. “I 
can’t stand it any longer. I got to keep the place. It’s 
mine ’n I can’t let it go. It’s made me sick. I oughtn’ 
to’ve sold it. I don’t know what I was thinkin’. I must 
o” been crazy.” | ; 

Alice turned to Warner and smiled. “Imagine! This 
time of day . . .” she said under her breath, “and at the 
front entrance.” 

But Warner stood watching the old man grapple with 
his deep emotion. 

“T’ve thought about it day ’n night . . . givin’ possession 
on the fifteenth . . . ’n I can’t do it.” Something made 
him unconscious of himself. The length of time his mind 
had dwelt upon it or the depth of his feeling was rendering 
him impervious to the surroundings. Usually reticent in 
the presence of people like the Rineland women, he was 
paying no attention to them. 

“Why, I know every stick ’n stone on the place,” he 
went on as though he and Mr. Rineland were alone. “I 
set out every single growin’ thing there but my prairie 
pasture and the Lord Himself planted that. I can’t part 
with it. I thought I could. But I can’t. It don’t seem fair 
to the place. Denning’s goin’ to cut down a lot o’ the 
trees. I’ve thought about ’em day and night. He’s goin’ 


UNCLE JUD FACES A CRISIS 285 


to cut down the cottonwoods ’n the osage oranges ’n even 
some o the maples. It don’t seem sensible that I should 
care. ‘What’s a tree?’ I’ve asked myself a lot o’ times. 
I’m willin’ to go so far as to say it ain’t sensible. But Ma 
’*n me put ’em in when they was little whips like your 
finger, ’n watched ’em grow for half a century. When you 
stop to think about it, Mr. Rineland, it just seems awful 

. roots all twined everywhere under the ground, enor- 
mous ’n strong, ’n overhead shade for men ’n beasts ’n 
homes of hundreds of birds . . . when they wa’n’t no shade 
here a-tall when we come. It just seems like undoin’ the 
work of a half-century. ’Tain’t sensible I know .. . but, 
God A’mighty . . .I got to stand by them trees.” 

He stood there in the overfurnished and overstuffed living 
room, an alien figure in his coat and muffler and his buckled 
overshoes, with his great shaggy gray head thrown back 
against the silk hangings. No one moved. Even Mrs. 
Rineland’s and Alice’s annoyance of expression faded a 
little under the old man’s emotion. Mr. Rineland stood 
leaning against the fireplace mantel, half shading his face 
with his hand. It came to Warner that it seemed like the 
third act of a play in which some great old world-famous 
artist was holding the boards with magnetic fascination for 
his audience. But it was not acting. It was real life. 

“And he’s going to plow up that one piece of pasture 
of mine that’s real prairie,” he went on. “I got one piece, 
you know . . . it’s only ten acres . . . but it’s virgin 
prairie. I been keepin’ that all these years. Every year 
the teachers bring the children in their classes out ’n show 
’em. I’m the only one in the whole community, maybe 
county as far as I know, that’s kept any. It ought not to 
be plowed up. The kids ought to see it . . . every gen- 
eration of ’em ought to.see the way it looked when the 
world began. Denning don’t care about that. He’s all 


& 


286 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


for makin’ more money. But there’s things in the world 
besides money. ’N that piece o’ virgin prairie ought to 
be let stay for the kids to see. I can’t think of anything 
else durin’ the night but me doin’ that tom-fool thing of 
sellin’. I must o’ been clean out o’ my head. I belong there 
’n I got to go into the field again. If you ever had any- 
thing prey on your mind like that you know how I been 
feelin’. I got to go into the field again when spring comes.” 
He appealed to the silent figure by the mantel but the 
banker did not look up. 

“So I been up to see Denning this late afternoon. It 
got so I couldn’t stand it. I drove up just after supper 
and talked to him. He was sore about it . . . but I kept 
at him askin’ what he’d take to destroy the contract ’n he 
says finally, “Twenty-five hundred dollars.’ He knew I had 
that exact amount on time . . . seems | said as much to him 
once. Well, I’m goin’ to do it. It’s stiff, but I’ve got to. 
I thought ’twas best to come and talk to you first so’s I 
wouldn’t get tangled in any legal procedure. That’s legal, 
ain't it . . . if he agrees . . . ’n I pay him the twenty- 
five hundred ’n he destroys the contract? Nothin’ ever 
could come up again, could it?” 

“No,” Mr. Rineland spoke from the shadow of his hand, 
“if you both agree to it.” 

“He’s a close figurer ’n I suppose he thinks Carl can 
buy somewheres else near and make twenty-five hundred 
easy. It’s stiff I know. I’m sorry it takes all that money. 
I suppose you think it ain’t good business?” 

Mr. Rineland drew his hand from his eyes. “No, it isn’t. 
But you had to do it. Don’t worry about it any more, Jud. 


I know how you feel. We'll fix it up Monday and call off — 


the public sale. Nobody understands it better than I.” 
The old man brightened childishly. “With you and Ma 


i 


wie atl about it, I don’t care what anybody else i 


ws 


t 


ne 


UNCLE JUD FACES A CRISIS 287 


thinks. That twenty-five hundred dollars was hard earned 
but even that don’t count now beside the big mistake I 
made. That money seems just like a piece o’ paper to me 
now. ‘N I said to Ma, ‘What’s a piece o’ paper beside our 
home with the maples ’n the cottonwoods that’s been a half 
a-century growin’ ... ’n the ten acres o” virgin prairie 
I'm savin’ . . . for all the little kids to see? . . .” 

Down at the “Bee-House” Walt and Essie sat in the 
kitchen. It was a big room built in the days when people 
baked whole hams, huge loaves of bread and big batches 
of doughnuts instead of stuffing a green pepper and opening 
a can of sardines in a kitchenette. Miss Rilla and Miss Ann 
sat in their father’s library, where they had once perched . 
on the arms of his chair and listened to his sonorous voice 
read “The Three Bears.” He had imitated the high squeak 
of the little bear, the natural voice of the medium-sized bear 
and the guttural tones of the big bear so realistically that 
they had shivered with delight. And now Miss Rilla was 
Saying, “Ann, it seems like we ought to tell Essie to take 
her young man into the parlor or the front hall.” 

“No, I’m not going to encourage her in this kind of 
doings. And I’m not going to have to see or hear any of 
their foolishness. I can’t stand any lally-gageing around me. 
It’s bad enough to have Dr. Pearson and Helen Blakely 
hanging around and talking low. It makes me sick.” 

_ Miss Rilla sighed. The realm of romance was a shadowy 
forest to Miss Rilla, very vague and far away. She had 
never walked in it, for her sister would never let her. But 
many times she had stood on the borders of its confines 
and looked in. 

_ Walt and Essie talked about a few local happenings and 
the backwardness of spring. They were both conscious of 
he fact that they were saying things for which they cared 
ittle. Essie was crocheting lace for a dresser scarf. She 


288 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


looked plain and neat and pleasant. Walt said after a 
while, “I mustn’t stay long enough to get the ogre after me. 
I’d just naturally turn and run if the fierce one stuck her 
head out here.” 

Essie smiled at Walt. It made her wistful face almost 
pretty. “Miss Ann isn’t so fierce as people think. She’s 
like old Jud Moore, all prickly on the outside.” 

Essie went to the door with Walt. They stood in the 
back entry where the big refrigerator was kept-. There 
were glass jars turned upside down on top of it and a dish 
of salt mackerel was soaking for breakfast. 

“Good night, Walt,” Essie said cheerfully. “It was awful 
nice of you to come and see me. I miss Nancy a lot. When’ 
she was here I used to think all day when I was working 
how jolly it would be when she came blowing into the 
house in that excited way of hers. Mr. Field misses her too. 
I can see the look in his eyes. It makes me sorry for him. 
He couldn’t help liking her . .. she was so likable. I 
wish I was gay and pretty and full of life like Nancy 
always was.” 

_ Walt stood counting the rows of jars. Suddenly he 
reached out and took Essie’s hands. Milking cows 1s not 
conducive to cultivating a skin you love to touch and 
neither is dishwater a good hand lotion. “Essie, I wish I 
could tell you something ... and have you understand 
me... without getting mad.” | 

“Why, Walt, you can tell me anything and I wouldnt 
get mad.” | 

“T believe it. Listen then. I used to think everything of 
Nancy. But that’s all over. I’m going to put her clear 
out of my mind and forget that I ever did. But V’d rather 
be honest with you about it and start on the square. I 
guess you know who I mean when I say that there are other 
nice girls in the world ... one of them, anyway. Just 


UNCLE JUD FACES A CRISIS 289 


this last winter . . . I’ve got to thinking a lot of you, 
seeing more of you this way. I’ve got to work hard all 
my life and I’ve got to always look after Ma too. I wouldn’t 
want you to not know that. But if you’ll marry me. . . 
Gee, I’d be glad and I’d give you the very nicest home I 
could.” 

It did not seem true. Fairy tales were only in books. 
Essie’s honest heart was full to bursting. “Walt, I suppose 
I ought’n to say it so bold but I’d . . . rather marry you 
than do anything else in the world.” 

Warner left the Rinelands. The evening had not in any 
way filled the void; it had in no way dulled the ache. 
Alice’s exquisite music after the departure of Uncle Jud 
and Aunt Biny had only served as a background against 
which there persistently moved a slim little boyish figure, 
fragrant and elusive. 

On the way home he passed Walt. 

“Hello, Walt.” 

“Hello, Mr. Field.” 

They both paused uncertainly as though there were more 
they ought to say. But they did not say it. 

“Getting colder, Walt.” 

“You know it.” 

‘Walt passed on in a state of humble elation. He thought 
of Nancy who was so far above him. She was like some- 
thing high and lovely and ideal but far away like the float- 
ing dissolving clouds he watched while he cultivated the 
corn... like the prairie lark that swung up from the 
pasture. But Essie . . . Essie was a good pal, that’s what 
she was, pleasant and comfortable and easy to get along 
with. She looked pretty to-night too in her blue dress 
with a string of white beads at her neck. She fixed her 
hair neat and nice and when she smiled she looked happy 
and good-natured. They would build a bedroom on the 


290 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


south. Walt’s blood was warm within him. He’d buy two 
more cows from Jud Moore. Jud said something seemed to 
ail him. He didn’t feel good. Well, he felt good. He’d 
always feel good. Sickness was an alien thing . . . a thing 
that happened to other people but never would to him. Poor 
Field! He’d been scorched, too, near the flame of Nancy. 
And Nancy was going to marry the president of the biggest 
manufacturing concern in Chicago. He could even buy 
the Rinelands out, bag and baggage, a dozen times. His 
thoughts went back to Essie. It was funny he’d never paid 
any attention to her in school, and there she had been all 
the time . . . his wife . . . waiting for him. Wasn’t there 
an Essie somewhere for Mr. Field? Alice Rineland maybe. 
He wouldn’t want her though. Alice was good looking 


and correct and she’d have all the Rineland property some — 


day, but he just didn’t like her. Stuck-up! Always had 
been that way through school. Walt tramped along in the 
cold past the long row of stark Lombardy poplars. 

At home he went to the barn to see if his brood mare was 


all right. When he got back to the house he took off his — 
shoes and tiptoed past his mother’s bedroom door. Then ~ 
he turned back, went in and sat down on the edge of the ~ 


bed. ) 


“Ma,” he shook her huge figure carefully at first so as 


not to frighten her, “Ma, wake up. I want to tell you © 


something.” 
Mattie came out of a deep sleep. “The mare sick?” 
“No. Listen! Essie’s said she’d marry me.” 


Mattie was wide awake now. “Essie? After you grievin’ — 


yourself about Nancy for four years?” 


“Aw, forget it,’ Walt grinned. “Essie’s a dandy girl.” — 
“Well, I suppose it’s got to be.” Mattie had Spartan 
blood in her. She met it, head on, as it were. “And thank 
the Lord it’s her. Essie’ll be a good comfortable girl to have — 


UNCLE JUD FACES A CRISIS 291 


around and she’s got more work in her little finger than 
some girls has in their whole systems.” 

But she did not go to sleep again. For a long time she 
lay and thought what a little while ago it was that she was 
tucking Walt in his crib. Why did they grow up and slip 
away from your arms like that? 


CHAPTER XXIX 
FIVE-THIRTY O’CLOCK. 


Monday every one realized that it had grown a mane 
and tail. Winter was laboring doubly hard be- © 
cause of its laggard ways in the early weeks. 2 

The First National Bank force was working like a trac- 
tion engine. Almost one could hear the cogwheels and 
belts and pulleys of the business straining and squeaking. : 
Country bankers’ New Year’s, like that of the Chinese, does — 
not fall on January first. It is in March. There is not the 
slightest doubt but that one, Brutus, some little time ago, 
had country bankers in mind when he said, “Remember 
March . . . the Ides of March remember.” 

At noontime the little force of five drew its first long 
breath since the doors had opened at eight-thirty. Land 
deals,. note renewals, settlements of various kinds . . . the 
whole morning had been rushed. 

“Pretty busy,” Mr. Rineland spoke crisply when he put 
on his coat. 

“Things could be worse,” the cashier admitted. “The 
examiner could arrive.” 

“A federal officer could drop in to check over the revenue 
stamps,” Warner contributed. i 

Marty Spencer added cheerfully, “Or old Mr. Flachen- — 
echer could spend the afternoon with us and tell us how ~ 
he and. General Grant conducted the Civil War.” E 

They were all back promptly at one. People began — 

‘ 292 F 


| Dass though March had come in like a lamb, by 


FIVE-THIRTY O’CLOCK 293 


coming in. The Millers and the Albrechts and the Guggen- 
meiers had a long and complicated interchange of land, 
checks, notes and liberty bonds. Other farms changed 
hands and several pieces of town property. Some of the 
parties to the procedures were so stupid that only the blood 
of many chivalrous ancestors kept Warner Field from 
slapping them. By three o’clock things were thickest. The 
air was stale. The force was beginning to feel the pressure. 
At four old Jud Moore and the Dennings came in. Mr. 
Rineland himself fixed up the deal. When it was finished 
Mr. Rineland said, “There, Jud, the farm is your own 
again.” f 

Old Jud Moore nodded his shaggy gray head. “I had to 
do it,” he said simply. 

It was five-twenty when the force finally got into its 
various overcoats. 

“Walk up with me, Warner.” Mr. Rineland spoke to him 
in the lobby. “I want to talk to you a bit.” On the way up 
Main Street he explained, “It’s about your writing. I’m 
glad to learn that you’ve done something with it again. 
I’m especially pleased that apparently it hasn’t affected 
your work at the bank. I’m wondering though if you’ve 
been using yourself well, staying up and all that. A man 
can’t serve two masters, you know. I’m no old woman 
to gossip, but I’ve had a feeling that you weren’t looking 
quite so well... not ill... but a little off ... my 
imagination, maybe . . . but just not so fit.” 

“T’m all right, Mr. Rineland. I’m feeling as well as 
could be.” 

“Nothing on your mind? I’m not asking from idle 
curiosity, Warner. Don’t tell if you’d rather not.” 

He was so sincere that it hurt Warner to say, “Oh, one 
has problems sometimes. . Quite often they’re not so serious 
as we think.” 


294, THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


“You'll have some money coming from your writing. 


I’m wondering if you’d like to take a little stock in the old © 


First National. It’s not for sale. But your father and I 
were good friends and I’d like to let you have a little 
block of it.” 

He was cornered. After all, Mr. Rineland was his em- 
ployer. He ought to know. So he said readily enough, 
“T had a debt . . . it’s a source of regret to me. I have had 
to use my money for that.” 

“IT see. That’s all right.” But it worried Mr. Rineland. 
He did not like the sound of it. A young fellow of Warner’s 


age to be deeply in debt! The new generation did not know 


what it was to dig and delve and save. 
Warner left him at the “Bee-House” corner. He knew 


that Mr. Rineland was disappointed in him. He himself _ 


was disappointed. A block of stock in a sound bank whose 
stock was not for sale! He went up the steps with a com- 
plete reaction of feeling concerning the part he had played. 
He should have allowed his father’s disgrace to be known, 
and let the bonding company pay the loss. He had been 


a fool. Disgust with himself and a revulsion of feeling — 


at his attitude in the affair were rampant as he entered 
the “Bee-House.” And then he was back again with his 
mother clinging to him after his father’s death. Wearily 
he admitted that he would do it all over again for her. As 
he went up the winding pistacioh he could hear low voices 
in the dining room. mee 

The voices were those of Essie and Miss Rilla and Miss 


Ann. It was Essie who timidly approached the subject as i 


she set the long table. “I thought I ought to tell you, Miss 
Ann ... I'll not be here but a few months.” She was 


ee 


plainly embarrassed. “I... I’m going to marry Walt — 


Thomas.” 
Miss Rilla’s eyes filled. “Why, Essie, how nice that is. 


ull 
4 
% 


FIVE-THIRTY O’CLOCK 295 


He’s a good boy. They say he’s so good to Mattie. He’s 
turned out well when you think of the kind of father he 
had.” 

“Pst!” Miss Ann dished up her little dipper of cold 
water. “You can’t get away from a father. He’s got his 
father in him and if it’s in I say it’s bound sooner or later 
to come out.” 

Essie flushed. “Well, I guess I’m not afraid.” 

“No, of course not.” Miss Ann’s sarcasm was supreme. 
“They never are. They just go right on marrying and being 
fooled all over the world.” 

Essie stood her ground. Her love for Walt Thomas was 
too old and too strong to waver before the onslaught. “All 
right, maybe that’s so, Miss Ann, but I’m ready to be 
fooled.” 

Her gray head high, her heavy body erect, Miss Ann 
walked out of the room. What could one do with an imbe- 
tile like Essie? And besides, whom else could she get 
to work so reasonably? In the kitchen she sat down heavily. 
From the front parlor came the sound of the old cracked 
piano and a throaty voice singing, “When you come to the © 
end of a perfect day.” Miss Rilla, with the vague idea of 
comforting her twin, came out to the kitchen. 

“Are you ill, sister? Is there anything you want?” 

“Yes,” Miss Ann said crabbedly, “I wish you’d go in 
there and throw a dinner plate at that Mary Mae Gates’s 
larynx.” 

While Miss Ann still sat weightily on the painted chair, 
Genevieve Kendall came into the kitchen. She looked 
out of place in her dinner dress and came stepping in 
gingerly, as one whose first-hand knowledge of kitchens 
was limited. 

“T just thought I’d tell you, Miss Ann, that George 
won’t be back at all. But I’m going to stay. We're 


296 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


through. I applied for my divorce to-day. It’s just got so 
I can’t stand things any more. I’ve had so much to put 
up with.” 

Miss Ann snorted politely. “I wish you’d go tell that 
to Essie Carlson,” she said acridly. 

In the room over their heads Major Slack had just 
finished reading an old newspaper clipping under the 
headline, “Youngest Volunteer Major In The Division.” 
Then he walked over to his mirror and surveyed himself 
in a blue uniform with white stripes down the legs.’ The 
coat would not come together over the Major’s pompous ~ 
front, and the hard stiff-billed cap sat rakishly on his — 
bald head. He passed his hand questioningly over his red 
puffy face. Where and when had youth slipped away? ; 

At that same moment Miss Gunn came wearily up the 
hill from the Whittier. She had spent an hour with one 
of the Swanson boys over an arithmetic lesson. He was so 
dull, so phlegmatic and yet . . . perhaps some little seed 
sown in the hour would take root. Never would she shirk 
as long as there was strength within her. At the “Bee- 
House” steps Marty Spencer, light-hearted, irresponsible, 
joined her. : 

And down in the Carlsons’ and Swansons’ neighborhood, 
Gus Carlson scraped away the snow from a patch of ground 
in his back yard, made some parallel trenches and put in 
a few early radish and lettuce and pea seeds. “I suppose ~ 
T’ll have to sit on the fence with a shot-gun,” he called 
loudly to Jen at the cob-house so that Jim and Myrt Swanson _ 
might hear and know he had specific reference to their 
Rhode Island Reds. 

Myrt Swanson heard him from the cyclonically jumbled 
interior of her back porch and called to Jim, “Some folks — 
ought to send their Plymouth Rocks to college . . . such © 
smart polite chickens!” | 


- = Je ee 


FIVE-THIRTY O’CLOCK 207 


Out on the highway east of town, Dr. Pearson was return. 
ing from a country call. Helen Blakely was with him. The 
doctor could have chosen no more unromantic moment nor 
place than five-thirty of a dismal March afternoon on the 
snowy highway near the Mattie Thomas farm to say prac- 
tically: “I love you, Helen, and I want you to be my wife, 
but it takes an awful lot of gall for a doctor to ask a woman 
to marry him. It’s like asking you to become a missionary 
to Indo-China or the Belgian Congo. It means meals at 
every hour but the one you’d expect me, to try your pa- 
tience. It means keeping secrets from you that I couldn’t 
possibly tell you, to try your faith. It means a lot of 
uncollected fees, to try your charity.” 

Quite surprisingly Helen Blakely used the same words 
that Essie had just used to Miss Ann. “I guess I’m not 
afraid.” 

Near the Lombardys at the Thomas farm they passed old 
Jud Moore going toward home with the Dennings in their 
big car. In front of the Thomas place they could see 
Walt going into the kitchen door with an armful of wood. 

When he went in, Walt found his mother, huge and 
perspiring, stepping lightly about the stove. She had 
pork steak, mashed potatoes, fried onions, creamed dried 
corn, cake, coffee and jelly for supper. She was wondering 
if she had plenty, whether she ought not open a can of 
peaches, too. Walt put the wood in the box and started 
out again. “Supper, Walt,” Mattie called. 

“All right, Ma . . . just a minute.” 

He went around the house, took a tape-line from his 
pocket and measured a rectangle. It could be fourteen 
by eighteen. It could have windows . . . a lot of them to- 
ward the south. Essie’s rocking-chair and a little sewing 
‘table could sit in the sun. After supper he was going 
to look through all the different mail-order catalogues for 


298 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


furniture . . . some of this light colored shiny kind with 
flowers painted on it. 

When the Dennings let Uncle Jud out by the cottonwoods 
at five-thirty, he did not go directly into the house. He 
walked down the lane road past the harness shed and the 
barn toward the orchard. By the apple trees, he stopped 
and looked around him. He put out a huge hand, as 
gnarled as the tree trunk, and touched its moist gray bark 
gently. He went on until he came to Tinkling Creek, tramp- 
ing along its slushy banks. A bluebird, like a wild gentian 
blown from its stalk, flew noiselessly across his path. He 
came then, in time, to the edge of the cornfield and the 
wheat land and the prairie pasture lying under the thin 
quilt of snow and gazed with supreme content upon them. 
He made the entire round of the place in the chill of the 
late afternoon, coming back to the house lot past the maple 
windbreak and the cottonwoods. Under the maples he 
stood for some time and gazed up into their gaunt twinirg 
branches. A hundred old nests swung idly in the wind, but 
as he looked a robin darted up to the limb on which hung 
one of these empty homes, and raising its rusty black 
head, flung out its soul in a welcome to spring. Old Jud 
~ Moore went up the back path to the kitchen door. “Ma,” he 
called, “’twon’t be three weeks till I'll be goin’ into the 
field.” 

At that same moment, just as Uncle Jud stepped into the 
kitchen, it was six-thirty back in Chicago. The city was 
dreary. In its own way it looked as stark and stripped 
of life as the country with the trees standing stiff and black 
in the snowy parks. The wind blew cold from the north 
whipping itself into a maudlin thing up and down the 
boulevards. But it was warm and gay and summerlike inside 
the big Hyde Park house. 


Nancy opened the door of her own room and went in, 


FIVE-THIRTY O’CLOCK 299 


turning the lock as she did so. There was a prenuptial 
dinner engagement and it was time to dress. For just 
a minute she leaned against the door and closed her eyes. 
In a whimsical moment she told herself that when she 
opened them she would see the old plain bed and bureau 
in her room at Aunt Biny’s and through the queer old 
window that looked three ways, Warner Field driving down 
the lane road by the cottonwoods into the yard. 

With childish disappointment she opened her eyes slowly 
to the silk-canopied bed, the carved dressing table and the 
lace-covered windows. Almost immediately they fell upon 
a letter awaiting her. She tore it open hastily. It read: 


Dearest Nancy: Warner has just left after telling me the 
wonderful news. You were certainly stingy with it. Nancy, 
dear, you would have saved me making myself so ridiculous 
if you had just told me. I’m truly sorry I said what I 
did about your friendship for Warner. You'll forgive me, 
I know, and realize what depth of feeling on my part must 
have called it forth. Warner gives me such wonderful 
report of the wealth of the man you are to marry. We 
are both so happy for you. 

Please think of me less critically than you may be doing 
because of my ill-fated remarks on our last night together. 
Maybe I’m envying you a little living in Chicago. And 
yet . . . who knows? . . . I can’t quite think Maple City 
will always hold me. 

Your lifelong friend, 
Alice M. Rineland. 


Nancy, on the bench in front of the luxuriously appointed 
table, bit her lip and tears of vexation welled in her eyes. 
What could one do with a person like that . . . smooth, 
suave, two-faced? For a half hour sheer jealousy clutched 


— 300 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


at her and wrapped its stinging tail about her. Out of the 
long moments of heart travail, no other punishment for her 
stood forth more poignantly than the realization that Warner 
was headed straight into the rapids. It was inevitable. 


Warner, who was fine and big and sincere . . . who needed 
some one with humor and understanding! And Alice, who 
was smooth and small and selfish . . . absolutely humor- 


less and wholly self-centered! When once she got him for 
her own she would bind him and hurt him and break him 
with those soft smooth slippery traits. Suddenly, it seemed 
that it must not go on, that Alice must not ruin Warner’s 
life with her needle thrusts. She, herself, must do something 
about it. Impulsively she stood up as though to put her 
thoughts into some sort’ of action. But some one was 


tapping on the door and rattling the knob. Fay’s voice. 


called: 

“Nancy, Dad wants to know what’s become of you? 
Aren’t you nearly ready?” 

Nancy threw up her head. “Nearly ready,” she called 


gayly. 


PN eit Be . 


CHAPTER XXX 
BACK TO THE PRAIRIE 


place and the reaction that followed getting it back. 

Uncle Jud thought it was the result of the cold 
ride in the open surrey the night he and Aunt Biny went 
in to the Rinelands’. Old Doc Minnish would have known it 
was neither one. All day Tuesday and Wednesday Uncle 
Jud lay in bed for the first time during his maturity. Wasn’t 
sick, nothing ailed him, didn’t want a doctor, just felt too 
tired to dress. 

Thursday was the day on which the farm would have 
passed out of his hands had the deal held. Aunt Biny spoke 
of it to the old man when she brought in his dinner on 
a tray. But it was not necessary to remind him of the 
thing that had burned into his brain. When she had taken 
away the scarcely tasted food, he lay and thought of the 
place, of the corn land and the wheat land and the pasture. 
And thinking so, he determined to get up and dress. All 
foolishness to stay there and imagine something he might 
as well go out and see. Moving quietly, so as not to let 
Ma hear, he got laboriously into his clothes. Planning © 
craftily he decided to go out of the front door and around 
the east of the house which was opposite the kitchen side. 
Ma had eyes in the back of her head. Glad that the washing 
of the dinner dishes was holding her attention, he walked 
cautiously through the sitting room and out on the porch. 
Beat all how weak he was. That was what came from play- 
ing lazy and staying in bed when he ought to have been 

301 


\ UNT BINY thought it was sorrow over selling the 


P3009 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


working. The March sun was deceiving. Looked warm 
and was as cold as Greenland. At the corner of the house 
he stopped and steadied himself, one hand on the tin water- 
spout. 

There it lay stretched out before him .. . his place. 
Every line of it was as familiar as the features of Ma’s 
face. Looked pretty dull and somber just now. But, when 
the snow would go off and the warm days come, it would 
blossom forth again under his hand. The trees too . . . the 
cottonwoods and the maples and the gnarled old apple or- 
chard! He looked out toward the intertwined branches. 
They, too, would soon change. Queer how they drew their 
substance from the earth, how sap mounted up through their 
old roots and trunks, forming bud and blossom and leaf. 
How the leaves fell to the ground, turned to mold, sank - 
into the earth, became part of it, were drawn up as sap, 
and again there were bud and blossom and leaf. Change 
and yet ...no change. Like life! Babies and youths, 
mature men and old men. Like trees! Sap and, bud, 
blossom and leaf. Leaves. . . falling off ...mold... 
sap... bud... blossom... old men... falling off. 
No, not old men... leaves! He was getting mixed in 
his mind, becoming confused. Babies ... youths... 
mature men... leaves... falling off...! He was 
suddenly chilled and shaking. He felt cold, stricken, 
crumbling . . . like a shriveling leaf. He must get back 
to where it was warm ... in bed .. . under the leaves. 
No, he meant quilts. Dod-goned if he could think straight. 

He groped his way back to the bedroom and pulled off 
his shoes. Was too cold to take off anything more. Guessed 
he’d crawl right in that way, under the leaves . . . with 
the old men... fallen off. ... 

Aunt Biny in great fear sent for Doc Minnish. She 
blamed herself over and over for not hearing Pa go out. 


BACK TO THE PRAIRIE 303 


doors in the cold. Aunt Biny could not know that in going 
outdoors he had acquiesced in the Great Plan. 

When Doc Minnish came and saw Uncle Jud, the old- 
school doctor was no more helpless before the case than a 
scientific man would have been. He followed Aunt Biny 
out to the kitchen and told her that Uncle Jud had only 
a few weeks left. Standing by the sink with the cistern 
pump in it Aunt Biny went white and put her hand over 
the treacherous heart. This was the day she had dreaded 
for a half century. And now it was here. For a long 
time she stood by the sink. Two shall be grinding at the 
mill . . . the one shall be taken and the other left. Then 
‘she turned and limped into the spare bedroom, her crutch 
thumping over the threshold. She closed the door and from 
a bottom drawer took out a black suit and a white shirt. 
Her own gray silk dress lay folded in tissue paper in the 
same drawer. Always she had wondered which would have 
to be pressed first. And it was Pa’s suit. 

March stayed uniformly cold, monotonously snowy. 
Every day old Doc Minnish drove his dirty car through 
the packed single track that went east of town over the 
railroad and across Tinkling Creek, still now in a gray 
silence. Aunt Biny wanted his guiding counsel although 
there was little for him to do. 

Uncle Jud went down fast. It is often so. A half-invalid, 
like Aunt Biny, drags along for three score years and 
ten . . . and a strong man at the last crumples and goes 
quickly. Walt and Mattie came and the Dennings on the 
north. The countryside looks after its sick. Hearing how 
his old customer was stricken, Mr. Rineland drove out in 
the shining sedan. Alice sat in the car and worked on a blue 
and silver bead bag while she waited for her father. Aunt 
Biny limped out and asked her to come in but she said 
no, she would just wait for Papa. It hurt Aunt Biny. She 


304 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


would have liked Alice to come in. Gus Carlson caught 
a ride out with the mail carrier. Miss Rilla baked a huge 
fourteen egg angel-food cake and wrapped it in a snow- 
white tea towel. 

“Good land, Rilla,” Miss Ann was provoked at the ex- 
travagance, “that old lady couldn’t eat that cake in a month 
of Sundays.” 

“T know it,” Miss Rilla wiped her eyes. “But I just 
want to do something for her.” 

The heart of the. whole countryside turned toward the 
white farmhouse at the edge of town. Tangled roots? 
Blind souls who can never find relief from their sordid 
surroundings? Poor thinkers! Not to see the shimmering 
erowth that springs upward when the human emotions are 
touched. ! 

Warner Field took Miss Rilla and the mammoth cake 
out to the farm, with Miss Rilla gingerly swinging the 
cake upward whenever the car struck a snow-filled rut in 
the ro2d. Warner told Aunt Biny that he would not go into 
the bedroom. But Aunt Biny limped in and returned to 
say that Pa wanted him to come in. So Warner, feeling 
clumsy and noisy, went in. The old man held out his gaunt, 
calloused hand. He went straight to the thing on his mind: 
“Field . . . wish you’d write to Nancy. See if she couldn't 
come back for a few days. She’s goin’ to be married 
pretty soon. They’re goin’ on a long trip. Just can’t 
bear to lay here and think of the ocean atween us without 
seein’ her again. Got somethin’ I want to tell her. Told 
me she’d come for a few days in September. But Septem- 
ber . . . that’s a long ways off when you're in bed. Might 
be I’ll never have a September. A-body can’t tell.” 

And Warner, back in town, remembering the pallor 
settling over Jud Moore’s face as though Death were taking 
jts first fitting, did not write. He telegraphed. 


BACK TO THE PRAIRIE 305 


On Tuesday morning, the first day of April, Warner went 
to the station to meet Nancy. Because March had been so 
winterlike there was not now much mote than the suggestion 
of spring. Tulips were up but acting shy, their buds still 
tight and green. White clouds were running across the 
sky, hurrying somewhere as though on important business. 
The sun was warm but when one stepped out of it the 
cold penetrated. There had been pussy willows on the 
“Bee-House” table. A few people were pruning trees. 
There were many bonfires so that the air was scented 
with the odor of burning rubbish. Such half-block pastures 
_as were scattered through town showed a faint flush. Only 
the winter wheat stood out boldly to color the landscape. 
Great emerald splashes of it seemed painted against the 
brown earth. 

At the station Warner walked up and down. His thoughts, 
too, went up and down . . . up and down. .. . The twist 
of the wheel that had sent Nancy back ... the joy of 
seeing her and the pain of losing her . . . of being with 
her . . . and then trying to forget. Up and down . 
up and down . . . past the baggage and the chicken crates, 
the trunks and the waiting people. Love ... hopes... 
the fulfillment of dreams! Debts .. . obligations ... 
promises! Up and down... Old Jud Moore fighting 
death until Nancy came. .. . He fighting life when Nancy 
came... . 

The train from the East was sweeping around the curve 
and then Nancy was stepping down from it in that quick 
alert way of hers and coming straight to him. It seemed 
the most natural thing in the world to them both . . . like 
a bird to its nest, the wanderer to his home. 

- “Is he living?” 
_ “Yes. These sturdy old people . . . it’s hard for them 
‘to pass out.” 


306 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Nancy put her thoughts into words as they were walking 
around to the car. “It’s queer, but I’ve sometimes imagined 
how it would seem to be coming back this way . . . called 
back to see one of them go. It doesn’t seem like a new 
experience. It doesn’t even seem queer to have you the 
one to meet me, Warner.” | 

“You knew they kept the farm?” 

“Yes. Aunt Biny wrote me. I can’t help but be glad 
they did.” 

They were in the car now. “How are the Farnsworths?” 
He could not evade the issue. 

“All well. Emily has her baby. It’s a boy. We're all 
terribly excited over it. Rod says to tell you he’s built 
like a quarter back. He looks like Rod and he weighs nine 
pounds. He’s a nice baby.” She looked up at Warner 
mischievously. For the first time the old Nancy had re- 
turned. “I’ll be his grandmother,” she said with her impish 
grin. 

They drove past the “Bee-House.” Miss Ann had begun 
the semiannual orgy of house cleaning, which always had 
the effect of making her more bitter and cross. Nancy 
recognized the upstairs hall rugs on the line. The Rine- 
land house looked down on them from its three terraces. 
“You’ve been seeing Alice?” She did her best with her 
voice but it did not obey her with any too much alacrity. 

“Occasionally,” Warner returned. They said nothing 
more until they had crossed the railroad track and were on 
the country road. Nancy sniffed the air. “Spring smells 
differently here than anywhere else.” There was that same 
odor of burning, of newly turned loam, of air that was 
half warm, half cold. There was the green of winter wheat 
in great patches that stood out vividly on the huge checker- 
board. There were the clouds that hurried on swift impor- 
tant business and the robins that flew across the road in 


| 


BACK TO THE PRAIRIE 307 


short futile journeys. There was the spring wind that blew 
across the open sweep of the prairie ...a wild, free, 
unhampered thing. 

“I believe I could stand the thought of death more easily 
if winter were coming,” Nancy said then. “But spring! 
With the orchards going to bloom... and... Uncle 
Jud liked spring!” 

Warner honked the horn for a wagon ahead of them. An 
occasional kernel of shelled corn dribbled down from the 
box and two chickens hurried along after it pecking their 
omnivorous way down the road. 

“It’s Walt,” Nancy said. “I must speak to him.” 

So Warner stopped and Nancy slipped out of the car and 
went over to the wheel. The horses backed and stepped 
around, huge, odorous things, their harness clanking. Walt 
swung himself down and took Nancy’s outstretched hand. 

“Aunt Biny wrote that you and Essie are going to be 
married. I’m so pleased, Walt.” 

Walt was red, visibly embarrassed. “Essie’s a good girl,” 
was all he could think of to say. He was as uneasy as the 
horses, shuffling about. It takes a certain degree of 
sophistication to get through a dramatic moment. And to 
Walt, who had loved Nancy, this was drama. 

“Uncle Jud’s going to die, Walt.” For the first time the 
girl’s voice caught and wavered. 

Walt turned his head. “Yes, the old man’s been going 
down the last few weeks. Seems like . . . after he sold the 
place.” 

When they drove into the farmyard, up through the fa- 
miliar cottonwoods, there were several cars there. Nancy 
shrank from the ordeal. “Warner,” she said, “I wish 
you didn’t have to go away.” 

“T’ll be right here when you want me,” he told her. 

Aunt Biny came into the bedroom to tell Uncle Jud 


a4 


308 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


that Nancy had come. Uncle Jud opened his eyes even 
though it seemed like he was almost too tired to do it. 
He had been waiting for this. He was going somewhere 
after she got here. He couldn’t think just where it was. 
Beat all how forgetful he was getting. But he could re- 
member that he was going some place where Ma would 
come, too, after a while. That was queer .. . they had 
always gone together before ... out to the State Fair 
or back to Indiany. Must think hard where he was going 
this time. Suddenly he remembered. It gave him a con- 
tented relief. He was going into the field. He wanted to 
see Nancy again before he went. Had something he wanted 
to tell her. And now here she was bending over him, and 
to save his soul he couldn’t think what it was. That’s the 
way he always was... dog-gone it... talked a blue 
streak when there was nothing to say and was tongue-tied 
when he ought to be talking. Nancy was a pretty girl. She 
was holding his hand and she was crying. Nancy ought not 
to do that. There was nothing to cry about. He’d try hard 
to think what that thing was. “Nancy . . . somethin’ 
always wanted to tell you. Can’t think to-night just what 
’tis. Too tired . . . in the mornin’.” : 

Something was closing Nancy’s throat and choking her. 
“Never mind, Uncle Jud. Don’t try.” | 

“Say, maybe ’twas about a playhouse.” He brightened. 
“Fixin’ you up the old cabin . . . so’s you can keep your 
dolls and play out there... .” 

For a while they sat so, Nancy’s wet cheek to his hand. 
Then. “Field come with you?” he asked. And a moment 
later, “Can’t he come in?” 

So Warner, too, came in and, grave and troubled, stood 
beside the bed. 

“Always liked you, Field. Feel safe about Nancy with 


you.” Uncle Jud’s failing old mind was mixed. He was 


. 


BACK TO THE PRAIRIE 309 


thinking it was Warner that Nancy was to marry. And it 
was not Warner. They would have to ignore an old man’s 
vagaries. “You'll take good care of her?” 

Nancy raised a stricken face to Warner. “Let him think 
so,” it begged. “Tell him so.” 

~So Warner bent to the old man. “I'll take good care 
of Nancy.” 

In the presence of Death it did not seem like a lie. It 
seemed sacred . . . like a matriage. 


CHAPTER XXXI 
A LEAF FALLS 


N 7 ARNER went out and sat on the seat under the 


apple tree at the corner of the porch. In a few 

moments Nancy slipped out and sat down by him 
in a burst of youthful grief. “A real father couldn’t have 
been better. One of the first things I can remember was 
taking hold of his hand and going down the lane road 
after the cows . . . and in winter. . . .” 

Warner would not touch her. It would have been folly. 
He sat there rigidly, his hands clenched. “Nancy, these 
things have to be.” | | | 

She threw out her own hands in a gesture of infinite 
bitterness. “Oh, what’s the use of anything?” 

Mattie Thomas stayed in the kitchen and cooked things 
most of the time. Walt brought in wood and coal. Mrs. 
Nick Denning took charge of the house. She moved about — 
importantly in a striped dress with her hair twisted high on 
her head as though by taking thought she had added a cubit 
to her stature. 

All afternoon Uncle Jud lingered and far into the night. 
There was cruelly little more they could do for him. He 
wished he had some cheese like he tasted once. He and 
Walt’s father had gone on a load of hogs to Postville. It 
was so near dark when they got there that all they stopped © 
to get was crackers and cheese. He wished he had some 
of that. : 

“Tt doesn’t matter,” Doc Minnish told them. “Get him 
anything he wants now.” ‘| 
310 7 } 


A LEAF FALLS 31] 


_ But when they brought the cheese he had forgotten his 
momentary desire. “Hell! No!” he said irritably, “what’s 
a sick man want of cheese?” 

In the dusk of the evening Nancy asked him, “Did you 
ever think of the thing you wanted to tell me?” Uncle 
Jud shook his head. “Too tired . . . to-morrow. . « .” 

Aunt Biny, dry-eyed and drawn, did not leave her chair 
by the side of the bed. He did not take his eyes from 
her. After midnight, still looking at her, they glazed. The 
throaty breathing stopped. There was a great stillness in 
the little room. 

Daylight had scarcely broken with all the birds in the 
trees singing wild pzans to its coming until the country- 
side knew of the passing. They talked about it over the 
party lines. 


“Jud Moore’s dead.” 


“Dead? My ...my! It was just three weeks ago 
Saturday . . . no, Friday . . . no, it was Saturday because 
I had my egg-case . . . ’n I saw Jud. I called out to him, 


‘How you this mornin’, Jud?’ and he said ‘Rotten!’ just 
as grouchy ’n natural like. And now he’s dead! Well! 
Well!” 

“The last time J saw him was that Monday he was in 
town with the Dennings. He had a sack of salt and a 
mended bridle; was bragging about how early he was 
going to do his plowing.” 

And so they told each other how queer it was . . . that 
he should have left the spring plowing and the sack of 
salt and the mended bridle and gone away. 

_ Many people came to the house as they do in country 
communities. They brought flowers and buns and coffee- 
cakes and a black veil. What did they do that for, Nancy 
wondered wearily. She didn’t want to see them. She 
didn’t want to see anybody but Aunt Biny and Warner 


312 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Alice came in the sedan. She was gentle and sympathetic. 
“He was a wonderful man, Nancy. I know just how you 
will miss him.” Nancy was dry-eyed. It did not touch 
her. She wished Alice would go away too. 

Warner came out after the bank closed. “Don’t go 
away,” Nancy said, and so he stayed until late in the 
evening. It was all he could do for her. 

On Friday afternoon the whole countryside came. The 
yard and the lane road and the highway by the cotton- 
woods were filled with cars. The house was full of people. 
Men stood outside the door. Aunt Biny let the women fix 
the black veil over her face apathetically as though it did 
not matter one way or the other. Somebody put coal in 
the stove. It sounded crashingly loud in the flower-scented 
stillness. The presidents looked stolidly down. The 
preacher, bustling and important with a cold in his head, 
read cheerfully the text of Aunt Biny’s choosing: He shall 
be like a tree planted by the river of waters that bringeth 
forth his fruit in his season... his leaf also shall no 
wither. 

The ground i in the cemetery was soggy on the north side 
of the evergreen trees where the last of the drifts had 
lain. Part of the dirt that had come out of the yawning 
hole in the ground was yellow clay. By its side the grave 
of the little girl that died looked sunken as though under. 
the weight of many snows. Nancy, with her youth and her. 
awe in the presence of death, wept. Aunt Biny, with her 
crutch and the unnecessary black veil, made no demonstra- 
tion. Mr. Rineland, faithful to his old pioneer friend to 
the last, was a pallbearer. Dr. Pearson and Helen Blakely 
were there. And Marty Spencer, strange looking because -] 
unsmiling, was there with Miss Gunn and Mary Mae Gates. 
Miss Rilla was there enjoying a good cry. Miss Ann had | 

aid she couldn’t abide a funeral and nobody need try 


A LEAF FALLS 313 


to get her to go. Warner, who knew that his place by every 
decree of nature was with Nancy, stayed in the background 
with Miss Rilla. 

That had been Friday. Nancy’s plan was to stay with 
Aunt Biny Saturday and Sunday, to leave on the six-fifteen 
Sunday evening. 

Saturday turned warm, a sudden descending enfolding 
warmth as though spring, having neglected its duty, had 
rushed frantically to work. The trees over by Tinkling 
Creek threw out a faint tinge of green under one’s very eyes. 
There was almost a sound of growing things . . . all the 
little songs that buds make when they are unfolding, all the 
little tunes that grasses hum when they are stretching. 

Aunt Biny did not work all day although the loam and 
sunshine called to her, every clod and garden tool implored 
her. Once she limped out to the garden, enclosed by its 
fence from marauding chickens, and looked over the gate 
at the freshly plowed patch. “I ought to put in some 
radishes and lettuce,” she said. “But I don’t know as I 
want any of them.” Then she limped back and sat down 
in the chintz-covered chair by the window. 

It touched Nancy deeply. To see Aunt Biny uncaring 
about garden or chickens was to witness a revolution. 

All day Nancy did little tasks about the house. She and 
Mattie Thomas turned Aunt Biny’s bed around, hung up 
some different curtains and put Uncle Jud’s clothes out of 
sight. “Just to make the bedroom seem not quite the same,” 
they told each other. 

In the late afternoon Mr. Rineland brought Uncle Jud’s 
tin box out, and read them the will, a simple brief statement. 
_ After supper Warner drove out. The evening was so mild 
that he and Nancy sat on the seat under the apple tree 
at the corner of the porch. Everything about them was 
expanding under the balmy atmosphere. The very buds 


314 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE — 


over their heads seemed unfolding. They talked of ordinary 
and usual things, trivial they seemed, when all the time 
there was only one thing in the world worth talking 
about. 

“What are your plans, Warner? You're going to stay 
here?” 

“Temporarily at least.” 

“T wish you’d come out here again this summer to write. 
I’d like to think of you here. And Aunt Biny would like 
to have you.” 

“What is she going to do?” 

“The oldest Carlson boy is going to live here and do 
the chores and go to school. In vacation he will help 
Walt with the regular farm work. Walt is going to farm the 
lower eighty on shares and Nick Denning has rented the 
upper one.” 

And then Nancy was telling him about the will. “He 
left a life estate in the farm to Aunt Biny, then it is to be 
mine. All he had, Warner ... for me. I’m very glad 
about it... glad now that they didn’t sell. It isn’t so 
much that I will need it. It’s more because he gave me my 
trees and orchard and hills and prairie. You know I have a 
foolish little notion about that dual personality of mine. 
It’s a whim, of course, but I like to think that coming back 
to the old place sort of ... brings to life the Nancy 
Moore that grew up here.” | 

For a time they sat unspeaking and then Nancy wanted 
Warner to walk down to the old cabin with her. When they 
had crossed the lane road and gone in they found the in- 
terior dusty and unattractive. The two half-packed boxes 
gpon which Aunt Biny had been working were still on the 
table. The doors of the built-in cupboard were swung idly 
‘pen. Nancy walked over to it and running her fingers. 


into the crevice under one of the shelves, drew out the 
: 


A LEAF FALLS 315 


key. With this she unlocked the drawer under the cupboard 
and took out the shawl. Closer to it now Warner could see 
that although it was old and dingy looking, a dull brown 
in color, it had a rambling intertwining of faded green and 
blue vine. “This is the shawl that was around me. . .” she 
shook out its dark folds and its wide wool fringe, “only 
it was new then. It’s all that connects me with them... 
whoever they were. Cross-country movers probably .. . 
Zypsies, maybe, and a stolen shawl.” She looked ruefully 
at the old colorless thing. “It’s a great heritage, isn’t it?” 
She shrugged her shoulder. “I’m not going to take it with 
_me. This is the place for it here in the old playhouse. I’m 
putting them away for the last time . . . the shaw] and the 
picture of the Nancy Moore I loved for my mother.” She 
locked the drawer and turned to him. “Write something 
for me, Warner. Something I can read and know is just 
for me.” 

“You know already, that everything I write will be for 
you.” 

Time was going ruthlessly. The moments that were to 
be the last were winged. Dusk was descending on them in 
the little old house . . . dusk and the shadows falling. 

“T’d better go now,” Warner said steadily. “It’s early 

but you’ve had~some hard days and the trip back will 

be tiresome. I think I’ll not go to the station with you to- 
_morrow, Nancy. Walt can take you. If you don’t mind 
I'd rather say good-by to you here.” 

To Nancy standing there in the gloom of the cabin, 

came the poignant realization that life was passing by and 
' she could not stop it. Can one stop the night from coming 
on? Or the prairie wind? Her hands flew to her throat 
to check its throbbing. Suddenly, swiftly it came from 
her, “Oh, Warner, isn’t there any way out? We've only 
one life to live. This isn’t the way I wanted it to be... 


BRO tt THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


these aren’t the things I dreamed about ... duty and 
promises and obligations. I dreamed . .. oh, Warner, I 
dreamed such different things here in the orchard... . 
desires that were sweeping ... love that was enfold- 
ing... life that was cotnplone gaat 

With an infinite weariness of spirit, Warner pet that all 
the strength of will power which was to be used in the part- 


ing must come from him alone. Nancy was very impulsive 


and very young. The things which he loved in her, her 


youth and her impulse, were the very things he must fight. 

He took himself in hand with a grip of steel. “It goes 
deeper than our own desire. My old friendship for Mr. 
Farnsworth and my very deep indebtedness to him . . . your 
own obligation and your honest word to him. . . bind 


us both. Friendship and promises together make too huge 


a barrier to surmount. There are always just two ways 
to take in a big decision, Nancy . . . the wrong way and 
the right . . . and this is the right.” 

But even then, when Nancy’s hands fluttered out in a brave 
little gesture of mute acquiescence to the decision, Warner 
took them... and her... for the long moment which 
was their last. : 

Nancy stumbled up the narrow closed stairway to her 
room and threw herself in a little crumpled heap down by 
the bed. She was not given to definite prayer. She so loved 
life that continually she had sent up unvoiced praise for it. 
But now she prayed. And her prayer was: “God . . . let 
me forget him. Let me not remember him through the 
years to come. All that I ask now is: 


‘Wilt Thou blot out before mine eye 
The little path that he came by?’” 


Down in a first-floor room with the bed turned around, — 
nd the futile medicines thrown out and Uncle Jud’s slippers” 


} 
a 


A LEAF FALLS | 317 


carefully put away out of sight, Aunt Biny lay with wide 
open eyes. “I forgot to wind the clock,” she was thinking 
listlessly, “but I don’t know as it makes any difference what ; 
time it is.” 

Over in Maple City another woman was alone. Genevieve 
Kendall had been granted her divorce by the judge, and 
allowed alimony. As she surveyed herself in the glass 
she was thinking how she wouldn’t have to be hounding 
George continually for money now nor constantly giving 
him an account of herself. She felt very free. 

Across the hall from Genevieve’s room Miss Gunn had 
been reading Speaking of Operations by Irvin Cobb. 
“Nancy said it would improve my sense of humor,” she 
was saying to Helen Blakely who had just come in, “I’m 
sure I don’t know why. I think an operation is a very 
serious thing.” | 

Down in the front parlor Mary Mae Gates sat at the old 
grand piano, which the Judge had shipped out from Chi- 
cago, and practiced “The Land of the Sky Blue Water.” 
She tried the first musical phrase over eleven times before 
it suited her. It got on Miss Ann’s nerves stretched like 
fiddle-strings from much house cleaning. She had finished 
the upstairs bedrooms and would be ready for the storeroom 
the first of the week. “Sometimes,” she announced to Miss 
Rilla, “I feel like sweeping the boarders all down the front 
steps with a good stout broom and selling the house and 
paying off the mortgage. And then with what’s left buying 
a little tiny cheap cottage across the creek by the creamery 
and settling down to Be a comfortable old woman without 
any financial worries.” 

“Oh, sister, what would our dear father and mother think 
to hear you talk about leaving our old home?” 

“I think, Rilla,” Miss Ann’s voice was both sharp and 
weary, “we've been cursed all our lives with that thing 


318 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


called pride. Of course we’d rather work our fingers to 
the bone to keep up this old barn of a house than to move 
into a tiny one in a neighborhood where folks as poor as 
we are live. And of course we'd rather put up with the 
caterwauling of that washing-machine-voiced Mary Mae 
Gates and the fool jokes of that idiot of a Marty Spencer 
than forego the doubtful pleasure of entertaining the 
D. A. R. and the Woman’s Club here when our turn comes.” 

On his way into town, Warner Field was wondering if 
after all his father’s way out was such a poor way to side- 
step unhappiness. As he passed the Rineland house he 
could hear the lovely melting notes of the “Barcarolle” 
from The Tales of Hoffmann. Just after his roadster passed, 
Alice came out on the little iron balcony and looked up at 
the yellow-white moon. Everything was all right, of course, 
but she would feel easier and more comfortable by to- 
morrow night at this time. 


CHAPTER XXXII 
APRIL SIXTH 
oe morning Nancy was awakened by that famil- 
7} 


iar sound . . . the first to greet her every morning 

when she was a little girl . . . the thump, thump of 

Aunt Biny’s crutch on the kitchen floor. Aunt Biny, then, 

was busy again after her one day of idle grieving, going 

about her work, taking up her burden alone as cheerfully 

as though nothing were different. She would take up her 

. own in that same way, too, bravely, cheerfully . . . even 
_alone, in a way, like Aunt Biny. Something was sustaining 
_her this morning. The tempestuous railing at Fate of last 
night had gone. Although her life was not to be with 
Warner, she would try to mold the rest of it as he would 
_have her, to make her years very full. She must not let 
_pleasure swamp her entirely . . . society and idle futile 
things . . . Warner would not want her to do that. She 

would help Elsa Carlson and Mrs. Bornheimer. Some day, 

when Aunt Biny~became less active, she would come back 

to get her. Mr. Farnsworth need never be ashamed to have 

gentle Aunt Biny in his home. If she kept her mind on 

unselfish things and service to others, she would no doubt 

grow contented. She felt cleansed this morning . . . was 

no longer suffering. Last night she had prayed not to be 

‘allowed to remember Warner. Now she knew that she 
would not have it that way if she could. Always she would 
carry him in her heart but the memory of his strength and 

stability was going to be. helpful rather than one of regret 

. a talisman through all the years to come. 
319 


5 
320 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


She rose and went to the window . . . the queer bay 
window that looked out in three directions. It was the sixth 
morning of April and dawning unusually warm. Also it 
was going to be one of those windy days for which the 


prairie lover makes no boasts. It is the mid-west’s most. 


disagreeable feature. East of her, the sun was coming up 
over the low rolling hills in a sea of lavender. Little white 
clouds tinged with shades of rose and heliotrope like mauve- 
petaled flowers blew across the deeper purple above. The 
hills themselves were bathed in the light of the yellow-pink 
sun. Robins in the long maple windbreak were paying 
their morning homage to its coming, singing their own ver- 
sion of The Messiah. There were other notes too . 
distinct and clear: the cheery melodious ones of the 
meadow lark, the sad plaintive call of the mourning dove, 
the high sweet trill of a brown thrasher in the top of a 
cottonwood. Far off across the fields a bobwhite, the ego- 
maniac of the birds, shouted his own name to the sun. A 
rain crow added the practical threat of the chronic 
pessimist. 

South of her, the front yard with the old gate, weighted 
by the horseshoe, lay in the light of the morning. The 
cottonwoods, tall, straight, full of the promise of life in 
each sticky bud, guarded the gate on either side. The 
road, cleansed now from dirty snow, ran brown in the 
sunshine, little wisps of dust throwing themselves across it 
in dwarflike whirlwinds. 

To the west, the old playhouse sat dingy and shabby with 


its peeling paint. Beyond were the familiar barn, the stacks, 


the harness-shed. Walt was doing the chores, bringing in 
the milk, the brim of his wide hat flapping back from the 


stiff breeze. How good Walt had been! Beyond the Lom- — 


bardys was his home and in the distance was town. Warner 
was there two miles away. To-morrow he would be the 


a 


APRIL SIXTH 393 


equivalent of two million. Strangely enough, though, with 
the thought she had a semblance of peace that she had not 
felt since she returned to the Farnsworth home. With this 
suffering she had grown up. For the first time in a care- 
free life she felt mature. Life was a big thing . . . to be 
met squarely. In all the years that were past, she seemed 
to have side stepped it, to have evaded all issues that did not 
bring her pleasure. Life, then, was not that. It was not 
to be spent in feeding the desire for enjoyment, in thinking 
of one’s own comfort. It was forgetting self, completely, 
in service—to do the unselfish things always. In that di- 
_ rection, only, lay peace for her. Quite suddenly she knew 
that there was one unselfish thing to do before she left for 
good. To-day she could do it. Last night she could not 
have done so. She was going to see Warner once more for 
a few minutes to tell him this one remaining thing. It 
was not so much that it might be helpful to him or that it 
would influence him, as that the act would cleanse her from 
her last self-centered thoughts and cause her to leave with 
no regrets over the wasted opportunity for a generous act. 

The day grew more sultry with the climbing of the sun. 
All morning the hot wind blew. Sometimes it seemed 
almost like the August winds that blow from off great acres 
of drying corn, witheringly, blastingly hot. Every one 
spoke of its disagreeableness. It was the only topic of 
conversation as the churches were dismissed. Mr. Rineland 
and Alice, coming out of their own, met Warner. Mr. 
Rineland asked him cordially to get in the car and come 
on home with them to dinner. Warner excused himself 
and Alice, her gentle blue eyes safely upon a passer-by, 
_ knew that the reason was not the true one. But she could 
afford to be gracious and patient. Nancy was going for 
good. Time binds up all wounds. Just how deep this one 
was, she could not tell. There were many healing potions 


o22 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


one might apply to it. Music was one, tactfulness and 
serenity were others. Alice was bright enough to know she 
was second choice and dull enough not to care too much. 

Warner ate his dinner at the “Bee-House.” It was not 
a pleasant meal. The wind blew in that hot, disagreeable 
way. Some ne raised a window for air and from Miss 
Ann’s newly plowed garden the dirt blew in. Somebody 
else jumped up and put it down impatiently and they 
suffocated. To Warner, in the grip of his thoughts, the 
weather mattered little. 

“This is the windiest state in the Union,” the Major 
weighted the statement with the brick of finality. “And 
our neighbor, Omaha, is the windiest city.” 

“No,” said Miss Gunn definitely, “the government weather 
bureau says Chicago ranks first. New York and Huron, 
S. D., are second. Omaha is away down the list at seven 
miles an hour.” 

It created an interminable discussion. Dr. Pearson had 
scarcely finished his soup when Essie called him to the 
*phone. Without a murmur he took his bag and left. 
Warner had always admired that obedience, as from a 
soldier called to duty. He could see Helen Blakely color 
a little as the doctor left and he knew that she, too, was 
admiring that swift response. 

Mary Mae Gates was nervously fated “We've added 
another solo for to-night at the last minute, and of course 
I have to do it. I see hth; my Sunday afternoon has to 
be spent . . . at the piano.” 

“And I see where mine is to be spent then,” Miss Ann 
said in a savage undertone to Helen Blakely, “down cellar 
behind the coal bin.” 

Marty Spencer had a new story. It was about a woman 
who went into a market to buy a fish. “She says to the 


man oe 


Beis jor « 


APRIL SIXTH 323 


Warner tried not to listen. It was all very trying. 

Miss Rilla beamed with good cheer shining through her 
moist eyes. “I certainly enjoyed the sermon.” 

Miss Ann followed with, “It’s a good thing everybody 
doesn’t have to run around to get spiritual assistance to live 
through the week. I’d like to know who’d be cooking the 
dinners all over town.” Martha, Martha, thou art troubled 
about many things. 

When they had finished the tedious meal, Warner went 
up to his room and sat down near the closed window. Dust 
particles pattered like raindrops on the glass. He picked 
up Whitman’s Leaves of Grass but he did not open it. 

Down at the Carlson cottage, noisy with youngsters, 
shaking in the onslaughts of hot wind, Gus and Jen Carlson 
sat by their east kitchen windows and watched their neat 
garden with eagle eyes. The tiny lettuce and radishes and 
peas made a half hundred parallel lines of green against 
the black earth. Occasionally a wandering Rhode Island 
Red from the Swansons’ would squeeze itself through the 
_ fence and, cocking its head coquettishly, advance inquisi- 
tively toward the inviting banquet. Simultaneously Gus 
and Jen would dart out and frighten the explorer to the 
verge of convulsions. 

“I wish every one was in a stew,” Jen Nas call across 
the garden. 

“We'll have the law on Jim and Myrt yet,” Gus would 
threaten loudly. From the messy interior of the Swanson 
cottage, Myri, watching the pantomime, would raise the 
window and call out to Jim at the barn, “Maybe, Jim, we 
better bring in the chickens ’n have ’em set in the rockin’- 
chairs ’n look at the album.” 

Out at the Moore farm Nancy was packing her bag. She 
went at it deftly and cheerfully. “Aunt Biny, I’m going to 
send you some money every month and I don’t want you 


304 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


to say you don’t need it. I don’t suppose you do need it 
but I want you to have it. I want you to get some new 
things with it . . . just anything that you’ve always wanted 
but never thought you ought to have. Walt can take you 
over to town and you can pick out a new rug for this room 
and some new curtains. Get Elsa Carlson to help you. She 
has splendid taste and would enjoy it. And I’m going to 
leave an order at the greenhouse for fresh flowers every 
week for Uncle Jud. Oh, dear . . .” she stopped and 
looked out toward the harness-shed where it seemed she 
must see him, “after I quarreled so with him! Why don’t 
we act decently toward people when they’re alive?” 

At the Thomas farm, Walt cleaned the car up ready to 
go into town for Essie. As he was finishing it, an auto 
load of people from Postville drove into the yard and 
laughed long and _ hilariously at the pleasant surprise their 
presence had perpetrated on Walt and Mattie. Walt was 
not unduly overjoyed but Mattie was in her element. While 
she was visiting loudly and volubly with them, she “whacked 
up” three pies, a pudding, some mayonnaise and a pan of 
baking-powder biscuits. 

The big Rineland house on the hill stood strong and solid 
in the wind. Mr. Rineland, in the privacy of his library, — 
took from a drawer in his desk the rather faded and old- 
fashioned picture of his first wife. Then, with hands that 
shook a little, he returned it to the drawer and drew out the 
picture of his son. He went through this little reverent 
service every year on the sixth of April, the date on which 
the young college boy, full of the vigor of living, had met 
death in a train wreck on the way home for his spring 
vacation. His only son! And people like the Swansons 
and the Carlsons had so many! 

Downstairs, Alice pulled all the shades to shut out the 
light and keep the rooms dark and cool. As she did so she 


| 


1 


APRIL SIXTH 325 


planned the day. She would rest until five. Then she 
would dress. Nancy’s train was leaving at six-fifteen. 
About six-thirty she would ’phone Warner at the “Bee- 
House” asking him to come up to Sunday night supper. 
He would be lonely, perhaps depressed. She was still not 
sure just how far it had gone. But no matter, she could 
manage. She would be gentle and bide her time. She 
would play something soothing. Things had certainly come 
her way. 

When Walt and Essie drove into the yard behind the 
cottonwoods Nancy wanted to know if they would take her 
_ into town for a short time. There were a few people she 
wanted to see before she left. So the three drove in to- 
gether. Walt’s cheap car was clean and shining. Essie was 
shy with him but radiant. Such happiness as had come 
to her seemed unbelievable. All her life she would work 
hard for Walt. She was glad that she knew how to cook 
and sew and keep things clean. Work would be tedious 
no longer, but a beautiful task to do for the one person she 
wanted to be near more than any other. Yes, a world that 
would be drab to one assumes rose tints to another. 

The wind blew constantly, hot and disagreeable. Nancy 
stopped at the Bornheimers’. Things were better, Mrs. 
Bornheimer told her. The children were well and she had 
only four dollars yet to pay on the doctor’s bill. Mrs. 
Rineland, though, didn’t bring any more sewing. She 
was afraid she had charged her too much. Nancy left 
some money. “No . . . don’t feel that way, Mrs. Born- 
heimer . . . I want to. It seems like Johnny still belongs 
to me.” 

At the Carlsons’ Nancy talked with Gus and Jen about 
Elsa, a shining-eyed Elsa who looked upon Nancy as Joan 
may have looked upon the light. Elsa was to come to 
Chicago when Nancy would have returned from abroad. 


326 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Neither Gus nor Jen would leave the east windows while 
they talked, for fear they might miss some of the Rhode 
Island Red intruders. They told Nancy all about it, 
heaping figurative maledictions on Myrt and Jim Swanson’s 
heads. 

She went in to the Swansons’, too, for a minute. The 
children were glad to see her. The omnivorous baby was 
nibbling bites off a piece of paraffin from the top of a glass 
of jelly. y 

Myrt Swanson began right away on her troubles. “The 
Carlsons . . . they make life so miserable for me ’n 
Jim. What’s a hen or two? Next year I’ve a notion to 


raise a lot more, just to spite Gus and Jen . . . such mean 
19? 


things!” What narrow little lives, thought Nancy, the big 


issues totally eclipsed by the shadow of a chicken. 

Then they went to the “Bee-House.” Walt and Essie 
stayed in the car while Nancy ran in. At the porch she 
met Genevieve Kendall and stopped to talk to her. “Did 
you know George and I had parted?” was Genevieve’s glib 
greeting. 

Nancy did not know whether to congratulate or condole 
so she said honestly, “I was sorry to hear it, Genevieve. I 
always liked George.” 

“Tt’s the queerest thing, Nancy. George is in Omaha to 
stay. I don’t want to tell this to anybody here. But this 
morning for a minute I thought I saw him coming up the 
street. It gave me the queerest feeling. It made me wonder 
whether I’d do it again if I had it to do over. George had 
a lot of good qualities about him . . . you know that 
yourself. And when you’ve been married . . . I don’t 
know . . . there’s just something that can’t be unmarried. 
But anyway I just got to hating him. I guess he got to 
hating me, too, so it’s better this way. But why should 
I have to feel like I’m still married to him? . . .” 


APRIL SIXTH 327 


She would have rambled on indefinitely on both sides 
of the subject if Nancy had not broken away. 

When Nancy went into the house the tin-pan sound of 
the old piano and the throaty huskiness of Mary Mae Gates’s 
voice were filling the Sunday silence with, “There is a green’ 
hill far away.” Miss Ann, her face set in grim lines of 
stoicism, came out of the old library where Judge Baldwin 
had read “The Classmate” to the children on long ago 
Sunday afternoons. Miss Ann said Rilla had a headache 
and added pleasantly that, what with the air being so pol- 
luted with vocal artillery, it was a wonder she didn’t have 
complete paralysis instead. Nancy would not allow Miss 
Rilla to be called, but she asked if Warner Field might 
come down for a moment. So Miss Ann called him and 
Warner came down. The first thing that came to him on 
the landing was how very little the weather was affecting 
Nancy. Her slim boyish body in its modish gown and 
close fitting hat looked cool, her whole appearance un- 
ruffled. 

She looked up and laughed while he was still on the 
stairs. “You’re not rid of me, yet, Warner,” she called. 
“Am I not a bold maiden to chase you to your lair?” She 
had to be gay and natural before Miss Ann. “I wonder if 
you will come out and haul me in to the six-fifteen? Mattie 
has had a carload of people . . . two layers deep. . . 
arrive for supper and she will be serving it just at that 
time. So I thought you would do it for me instead of 
Walt.” 

Warner would, of course, although there went through 
him the swift fear of the bitter-sweetness of having to tell 
her good-by again. 

Nancy said good-by to Miss Ann. Miss Ann said good-by 
in that constrained way of hers, shaking hands rigidly. “T 
hope you will always remember me kindly,” she said stiffly. 


328 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


Nancy could not recall at the moment what particular kind 
thing she would always remember. As she passed the 
dining-room door she looked in. The table was set for 
lunch. There were daffodils in the center of it. She could 
see that already some one had her place. Life was going 
on without her. One boarder less made no difference. 

At the farm again, Nancy said good-by to Walt and Essie, 
who were to go on home and face the flippant jests of the 
company at the engagement. “Essie, you be good to Walt. 
He’s been a mighty fine friend to me.” 

“Oh, Nancy,” Essie burst forth in a little moment of 
emotion. “If folks were all as kind and lovely as you are! 
You won’t let being awful rich change you, will you?” 

Aunt Biny and Nancy ate an early lunch. While they 


were sitting at the table it clouded and there came a sudden ~ 


swift dash of rain. But it did not seem to lessen the heat. 
When the sun came out the dampness accentuated it so that 
the air was heavy, oppressive. Nancy was cheerful all dur- 
ing the meal. She had that feeling, though, which one has 
in speaking lines in an amateur play. She was playing a 
part, not entering wholeheartedly into it, but doing it pleas- 
antly as one must who has been cast in the réle he did not 
wish. She would get through it creditably even though it 
was not the assignment she desired. 

So she talked of little things as though she possessed a 
deep interest in them. “You’ve plenty of that liniment to 
last you, Aunt Biny? Now, don’t get sick, and above all 
things be careful about slipping on those back steps.” She 
was speaking her lines, moving about, playing the part, 
while time was rushing past her like the hot disagreeable 
wind of the prairie. “I don’t know just how long we’ll be 


abroad . . . three or four months anyway. I'll write you — 


from every place we stop. You'll enjoy that, won’t you? 
We’re to go up into Scotland a while I think. Ill describe 


APRIL SIXTH 399° 


the places and you can pretend you’re taking the trip too. 
Pll pick up some little thing for you at each place, so you'll 
have packages to look forward to.” 

It was five-thirty when Warner drove into the yard. 
Simultaneously with his turning into the lane from the 
main road there came another sharp dash of rain that 
changed in a moment to marble-sized chunks of hail. Coming 
as it did into the very lap of the heat seemed a most pe- 
culiar phenomenon. By the time he was in the dooryard 
and stepping out of the the car the ice balls crunched under 
his feet. 

Nancy was ready. She was dreading the parting with 
Aunt Biny who would probably break down. Tears from 
the old were so painful. But it was not Aunt Biny who 
went tearful. “You’re my mother, Aunt Biny,” Nancy 
held her fresh wet cheek to Aunt Biny’s withered one. 
“No matter who she was, yow’re my mother. And I wish 
Uncle Jud knew how sorry I am for the way I acted.” 

So after all it was Aunt Biny who had to comfort Nancy. 
“Why, dearie, he knows.” Aunt Biny’s faith was stu- 
pendous. 

“You'll need some kind of a wrap, Nancy,” Warner 
called. The cold of the ice balls made as great a change 
as though the country had been pitched headlong into an- 
other climate. So Nancy opened her bag and got out a 
coat. 

The two drove out of the yard through the ice with Aunt 
Biny standing in the porch and waving her crutch until 
they turned into the lane behind the cottonwoods. Then 
she limped into the house and looked about her strangely, 
almost stupidly. “Why, I’m alone,” she said as though 
she had not comprehended it before. She sat down in the 
chintz-covered chair by the window. For some time she 
sat idly in the still room. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 
FROM THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


ARNER and Nancy had scarcely turned into the 
lane until Nancy said hurriedly, “Warner, there’s 


so little time . . . and there’s something more I 


wanted to say to you before I go. I wasn’t unselfish enough 


last night . . . but to-day I feel stronger and clearer- 
minded about it. That’s why I felt that I must see you 
again. This morning, when I first woke up, it came to me 
that all my life I’ve been utterly selfish, thought of Nancy 
Moore’s pleasure and enjoyment and wishes before every- 
thing else in the world. I’ve always wanted things my own 
way and most of the time I’ve had them so. It seems to 
me that just to-day I’ve begun to be decent in my attitude 
toward .'. . people that I haven’t liked. This isn’t so 
much that it will help you . . . that it will make any 
difference one way or the other with the rest of your life 
. . . but it’s going to make a better person of me to tell 
you before I leave that I hope now you will marry Alice. 
P’ve just been stubborn and ugly in my thoughts about it. 
I think if you would . . . it would make her very happy. 
Alice is a great many things I am not. Your families are 
friendly. She has blue Mayflower blood in her . . . and 
mine. . . .” Even then she could not resist an impish, 
“mine is probably the most scarlet, garden variety of 
gypsy horsetrader’s. She’d do a great deal for you on the 
social side. In the years to come you’re going to be lionized 
more or less. She’s good looking and conservative. .. .” 
“And extremely uninteresting,” Warner added dryly. 


| 


FROM THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 331 


Even if Nancy was human enough to like to hear him 
say it, she was generous enough to return, “Don’t, Warner. 
Some day, you are going to be very sorry you said that to 
me. Right now I’m sorry for every little mean catty thing 
I ever said or thought about her. All our lives there has 
been a sort of half-concealed antagonism between us. I’ve 
probably been more to blame than she. And I'll give her 
credit for not being tempery like I am. Anyway when you 
face big things . . . like I’m doing to-day . . . you see 
things in a clearer perspective. And I believe that you'll 
find the very unselfish act of making another happy would 
_ bring happiness to yourself.” 

“So you think love is a commodity to be handed over 
from one girl to another like a package with a ‘Merry 
Christmas’ card tied on it?” Their places seemed to have 
changed. To-day it was Nancy who was strong, Warner 
who was weakening. 

“T think it can grow out of unselfish devotion to another.” 

“A pretty little philosophy, Nancy . . . as lovely as it is 
untrue.” 

“T don’t think so. I think if you andI. . . going our 
separate ways as we are doing . . . would meet a dozen 
years from now and be honest with each other . . .” 

“We wouldn’t, of course. We'd be polite and two-faced.” 

But Nancy did not answer. For there was another on- 
slaught of hail so that Warner slowed the car quickly as 
the jagged particles crashed on the windshield. The hail 
stopped as suddenly as it had come and a great stillness 
hung over the country. They were behind the long row of 
Lombardys at the edge of Walt’s land. 

“Took Warner,” Nancy said quickly. “That high smoke 
. . . there’s a big fire somewhere.” 

Above the trees an immense yellow-black smoke whirled 
up into the sky, spiraling, rotating, in great volume. But 


332 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


when they came out from behind the first section of wind- 
break they saw it was no fire but a more cruel Thing. 
Greenish clouds had whipped themselves into the shape of 
the bowl of a huge wine-glass . . . a bowl that was twisted 
and blackened and distorted as though Appolyon and all 
the powers of darkness were to drink from it with wind for 
their wine. The stem of the tall glass touched the far 
horizon, poised there for a moment on the rim of the prairie 
and then, swaying dizzily, began moving across the.open 
country. 

Warner stopped the car on the highway. “We'd better 
get out,” he said quietly. With no word Nancy obeyed 
him. The two walked away from the car to the side of the 
road. Fascinated, their eyes never left the restless, erratic, 
horrible Thing which was charging with frightful mad ~ 
roaring over meadow and broken field. Warner’s arms 
went around Nancy and he drew her close. 

The whole earth seemed to pause in silent contemplation 
of the uncanny spectacle of the heavens. There was no 
sound anywhere. No wind was in the trees. No bird sang. 
No cock crew. There was silence everywhere save in the 
frenzied heart of the Thing that moved swiftly across the 
prairie. It boiled and crackled and roared. It was heavy. 
But it was not clumsy. Gracefully it moved. Almost 
daintily it picked its way in and out of the farm lands. 
It bent and swayed and swung. The stem stretched and 
pulled away from the bowl. But it did not break. It 
sucked at the ground and whatever it touched, living or — 
inanimate thing, answered its wild call and was pulled up 
into the cloud glass to make wine for the fallen gods. 

Silently the two stood there together. There was no use — 
to move. There was no time to change location. There ~ 
was nothing to be gained by doing sc. For one does not — 
know where it is going. Its birthplace is in the southwest. — 


FROM THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 333) 


lts deathbed is in the northeast. And in its short mad life 
between these two uncertain points it stays on no track, 
travels no surveyed highway. It is the Tam O’Shanter of 
all the storms. 

There together Warner and Nancy stood and watched the 
Thing, spectators at the wind’s debauchery. They them- 
selves seemed safe, its swing an arc of which they were the 
hub. They could see the trees and timbers whirling in 
the angry wind and dirt. It swept with whirling, rattling 
violence past the edge of Maple City near the creamery 
district. And then—no longer were they safe, no longer 
onlookers at the drunken revelry of the wind. They them- 
selves stood in the path of the Thing. The highway was 
plainly to be the arc of its diabolical sweep. It was suck- 
ing its way towards Walt’s place. It had reached it now. 
It picked up his corncribs and flung them lightly aside. 
Snarling, it side stepped the house and the windmill. It 
twisted the barn around, tore the maples of a half-century 
growth, threw the fence posts about like toothpicks and 
came toward the two. They could feel the strong suc- 
tion of the vacuum. With one sweep of his arm Warner 
started to draw Nancy into the field at the left of the road. 
As Nancy’s hand reached for the fence, Warner jerked her 
violently from it. In the brief second taken to reach it, 
electric light poles at the side of the highway had snapped 
and dropping their death-charged wires across the fence, 
charged it with their liquid death. Only the fraction of 
’ an inch had intervened between them and its molten fire. 
They were barred from egress into the fields beyond, 
trapped between the death-fire of the fence and the death- 
wind of the storm. In a few seconds the Thing was to take 
them with it . . . like fence posts. 

They stood awaiting the verdict of Fate. Whatever the 
judgment rendered, they were ready. Once. . . it seemed 


334 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


a thousand years ago . . . standing on a hillside, Warner 
had said, “How they must have loved adventure!” and 
Nancy had answered, “How they must have loved each 
other.” And now they, too, were facing adventure . . . 
the Great Adventure . . . and they, too, loved like that. 

The gods sneered at the two tiny pygmies standing there 
together in the way of their mad wind-wine debauch and 
reached out for them. Warner’s lips met Nancy’s. And 
‘then . . . with snarling demoniacal laughter, as though in 
the act they suddenly recognized the futility of parting 
these humans, the gods tossed the glass across the road into 
the field beyond and left the two standing there unscathed. 

The stem was bending now. The bowl had become too 
heavy for the handle. Upper wind currents commenced 


“ snapping the glass. It was as though the demons were ~ 


through with it, had drunk their fill. They bent the stem, 
twisted it, even knotted it into bows in their wrath. As 
though the black glass shattered, the bowl broke slowly, 
splintered into small pieces, disintegrated, flattened out 
dejectedly, rolled itself in thick gray-black dirt-smoke over 
the bare cornfields. And the mad orgy was finished. 

For a moment the sun broke through scudding clouds in 
the west. The prairie smiled again. Robins in the Lom- 
bardys broke forth into wild singing. A rooster crowed 
ecstatically. The Thing had gone. Nothing was left of it 

. nothing but the seared trail where the stand of the 
huge wine-glass had been dragged over the lovely prairie. 

Houses would be rebuilt. Trees would grow. Barns 
would be turned back on their foundations . . . corncribs 
renewed . . . fences repaired. Only one thing in the slimy 
trail could never be undone. When Warner Field saw 
Death coming toward them, riding over the prairie on the 
back of the wind; when he snatched Nancy from the electric 


destruction that awaited them both; when he stood facing — 


AE en 


FROM THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 335 


the Great Force, before which they were to be as leaves of 
grass, the things which he had not seen were taught him. 
Neither life nor death was the paramount issue. Nothing 
in the world or out of it was important but that he and 
Nancy were one. Wealth, friendship, obligations, debts 
. all the reasons out of which the barrier between them 

had been constructed seemed no longer reasons but ex- 
cuses.- Warner, his lips to Nancy’s, had said, “Don’t be 
afraid . . . nothing can harm us.” 

And Nancy had said quietly, “I’m not afraid now.” 

“Nor ever part us.” 

“Nor ever part us,” Nancy had agreed as simply as 
though the thing were simple. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 
AFTER THE TORNADO 


HEN the tornado had flattened out into nothing, 
Walt and Essie, Mattie and the company came up 
out of the milk-cave. Walt went out to the twisted 
barn and with great boyish sobs pulled a timber off his best 
brood mare, talking to her soothingly as one would talk 
to a woman in illness. Mattie picked her porch rockers 
and a crock of sauerkraut out of the cherry trees, pulled 


her clothes-wringer out of the side of the corncrib and stood _ 


looking vindictively up at one of her balloonlike kitchen 
aprons flapping grotesquely from the top of the windmill. 
With one hand Essie picked up the stripped body of a 
duck and with the other a bunch of feathers lying near and 
held them together stupidly as though trying to think of 
some way to stick them back. 

Aunt Biny had just taken down her Bible in the lonely 
silence. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
afraid. ‘Then she heard the far-away rumbling sound but 
thought it was Nancy’s train. “Jud and Naney . . . both 
gone now,” she said to herself, “and nobody knows . . . 
maybe I'll see Jud first.” 

Over in Maple City the boarders, who had been eating 
lunch when they first heard the roaring, talked excitedly 
on the porch of the thing they had witnessed. Some of 
them still had napkins in their hands. Major Slack in his 
perturbation had pushed his fork into his belt thinking it 
was an army revolver. 

Miss Gunn remained calm, contributing a few statistics, 

336 


AFTER THE TORNADO 337 


“Tt is a well-known fact taken from the weather bureau 
reports that eighty per cent of the tornadoes take place in 
the first three months of spring.” 

Marty Spencer asked, “Did you ever hear the one about 
the Chinaman who saw a tornado?” 

Nobody paid any attention to him. 

Mary Mae Gates carried an air of extreme relief, “It’s 
certainly a good thing it didn’t happen two hours later 
with church in session for we’ve practiced and practiced on 
our anthems and probably people would have walked right 
out on us.” 

Dr. Pearson was already running out his car in answer 
to a call from the devastated district. 

Genevieve Kendall stood a litile apart, frightened. She 
caught herself wondering if the storm had reached as far 
away as Omaha. 

‘Miss Rilla was openly upset. She wiped her eyes a great 
deal. “I keep thinking of Nancy,” she told Miss Ann. “It 
happened just about the time she would be out on the 
road coming in to town to take her train.” 

Miss Ann had been thinking of it, too, but she would not 
admit it. “I’m not going to waste any mental emotion 
over her,” she said tartly. “She slips in and out of every- 
thing as easy as a greased pig. No doubt she’s slipped 
out of this catastrophe, too.” 

Down in the creamery neighborhood the Carlsons came 
up out of the cellar on the east side of their house. Gus 
and Jen each carried a baby and the frightened older chil- 
dren were all clinging together. Simultaneously the Swan- 
sons came up out of their cellar on the west side of the 
‘house. Jim and Myrt each carried a baby and the frightened 
older children were all clinging together. 

“All safe, Myrt?” Mrs. Carlson called, hysterically. 

“All safe, Jen,”’ Mrs. Swanson answered, phlegmaticallv. 


ha 


338 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE > 


“Any damage over there, Jim?” Gus Carlson called. 
“My God . . . the chickens are gone!” | 
It was true. The place was bare where had stood the - 
house in which the Rhode Island Reds lived and moved — 
and had their being in those infrequent intervals of being — 
at home. Not even the remnant of a roost clung to the — 
ground. | 

Jen and Gus Carlson looked at each other for the space 
of a single inspired moment, then each suddenly pushed a — 
baby into one of the older children’s arms and ran out to 
their own henhouse. Gus took two old squawking hens — 
under his arms and Jen swept a brood of thirteen little — 
Plymouth Rocks into her apron, and hurriedly crossing the ~ 
deadline, presented them affectionately to the Swansons. | 

Mr. Rineland had seen the funnel-shaped cloud from the ~ 
windows of his library. Before running to find Mama and — 
Alice he had hastily unlocked a drawer, taken from it two 
of his most precious possessions and put them in his pocket 

. the pictures of an old-fashioned, sweet-faced woman 
and a young man. 

Alice Rineland and her mother had watched the death- 
dealing cloud from the upper balcony with interest but | 
not alarm, knowing that nothing could harm a Rineland | 
in an Italian Renaissance house sitting up on three terraces. — 
When the storm had dispelled itself they went into the © 
house and down to the first floor. Alice arranged the 
chafing-dish on the tea-cart with some dainty Haviland | 
dishes and a little slender vase of roses. She put a small 
log in the fireplace, and turned on two soft lights under 
silken shades. Sorting the music she found Schumann’s” 
“TrZumerei” and placed it on the piano. Then she arranged - 
the mulberry pillows in the big davenport and sat down” 
among them so that her pale prettiness stood out from 
them cameolike. ; 


¢: 


AFTER THE TORNADO 339 


The six-fifteen came in and pulled out... . 

At six-thirty Alice *phoned the “Bee-House.” 

Miss Rilla said that Mr. Field was not in but that she 
would have him call when he came. 

At seven-ten Miss Rilla said no she had not forgotten 
the message, that Mr. Field simply had not come in. 

Over at Aunt Biny Moore’s on the seat under the apple 
tree where the new buds were beginning to swell, Nancy, 
in the shelter of Warner’s arm, was saying, “When I was 
a little girl, I used to imagine how the man I’d love would 
look. He was about as tall as you and he had shoulders 
like you and the back of his head looked like you. . . 
but I never could see just what his face looked like. And 
then, the time I saw you by the straw stack, Warner, I 
knew that he was you... . 

“That makes me think of what an odd youngster I was. 
I had the queerest fancies. Uncle Jud gave me a lot of 
old account books and I always wrote all of my innermost 
thoughts down in them. I have all those old diaries yet 
but not a soul has ever read them. Some day . . . when 
I know you better . . . I'll let you read them... .” 


CHAPTER XXXV 
A BROWN SHAWL 


HIS is the end of the love story of Warner Field and 
Nancy Moore. No, that is not true. It is not the 
end. They are wrong who count love only as an 

emotion which touches the high points of existence. If the 

torrent of love, as of rushing waters, broadens into pools — 
of companionship and understanding it is no less sincere. — 
If it becomes calm in the even places of life’s afternoon it © 
is no less love. : 


Before going East to face Mr. Farnsworth together, — 
Warner and Nancy were married in Aunt Biny’s old sitting 
room with the lumpy couch and the base-burner and the 
presidents looking stolidly down. Nothing about it was 
romantic. It was in the morning in time for the train East. - 
Walt and Mattie came over, the whole hurried occasion — 
completely spoiled for the latter because of its lack of time 4 
for eating. The preacher, bustling and important with a ~ 
cold in his head, read cheerfully, “Those whom God hath ' 
joined together let no man put asunder.” Death and mar- ~ 
riage, sorrow and joy, they were all in the day’s business. : 

The neighbors talked about it over the party lines. “Mar-— 
ried? You don’t say! Why I think that’s turrible. A 
funeral on Friday and a wedding on Monday in the same ~ 
room!” ; 

“Well, whatever she’s going to say to the other man’s 
beyond me. Changin’ your mind over a man like it was 
no more’n the trimmin’ on your hat. But she was always 

340 ' 


te ln ih EP 


A BROWN SHAWL 34] 


a little fly-up-the-creek. Never could put your finger right 
on her like you could Lena Denning or some of them other 
girls.” 

When Nancy and Warner drove into town to the train 
they started early so they would have time to stop at the 
“Bee-House” to put up the car and get Warner’s bag. As 
they turned into the old drive from the Tenth Street side 
they could see that Miss Ann and Miss Rilla were still deep 
in the house cleaning. There were old-fashioned silk crazy- 
quilts over the porch railing and the mink furs that had been 
their mother’s were on the line behind the house. 

“They're the kind of people,” Nancy said, “who never 
get rid of anything. I'll bet they still have every old scrap 
of cloth and empty spool they’ve ever had.” 

At the house Warner ran up the winding stairs to his 
room while Nancy went back into the kitchen to hunt up 
Miss Rilla. On the second floor, Warner,. catching a 
glimpse of Miss Ann through the slightly-opened door of 
the storeroom, tapped briskly as he pushed it farther open 
and stepped in. 

“The Fields have stopped to say good-by,” he told her 
hurriedly. 

It was as though, upon opening the storeroom door, War- 
ner had also opened the rusty-hinged door of Miss Ann’s 

_ heart. 

She had been crying. Tears from Miss Ann would have 
been wrung from the depths. There was an open trunk at 
her feet. Pictures, garments, trinkets, all the odds and 
ends which people foolishly accumulate through the years, 
lay about her on chairs and boxes and the floor. In the 
midst of the hodge-podge assortment stood Miss Ann like a 
statue of Grief on a shore to which the wreckage of the 

past had floated. Startled, she looked up at Warner, her 
firm, red-cheeked face drawn and contorted into a harsh 


: : 


342 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


sorrow. For the fraction of a moment she made a motion 
as though to block his entry into the room, then suddenly 
abandoned the impulse and broke into uncontrollable 
weeping. 

“Old things . . . keepsakes . . . they always tear at 
one so... .” Her voice cracked in its hoarseness. “Most 
of these were my little sister’s.” She flung out her hand 
to take in the old and odd assortment of things. “She was 
only seventeen when she died . . . nearly twenty-three 
years ago . . . broken-hearted for a boy who had hurried 
home to her but had not lived to reach her.” 

Warner was acutely aware of the words she was saying 
but he was staring at a shawl which hung across the back 
of a chair. It looked bright and new, yet, with the other 
relics, it had come out of the chest at Miss Ann’s feet. It 
was a warm brown in color with a rambling vine of vivid 
green and blue and a wide wool fringe. 

Miss Ann, standing in the midst of the driftage, cried 
harshly—loud, wrenching sobs that wracked her. 

Silent, Warner stood and stared at the shawl, Although 
its coloring was fresh and vivid it was unmistakably the 
counterpart of the old faded shawl which Nancy kept locked 
in the drawer under the cupboard. It must have been 
Miss Ann’s or Miss Rilla’s. 

For only a second Warner’s mind hesitated, bewildered 
at the enormity of its thought, challenging its own reason- 
ing. Then swiftly and concisely, like fitting the pieces of 
a child’s puzzle, it began putting together the tragic bits. 
Miss Ann’s and Miss Rilla’s young sister had died. Twenty- 
three years before, Nancy had been left on Jud Moore’s- 
porch in a brown shawl. That shawl was old and faded 
now from much use, but it had been bright and new then. 
As bright and new as the one lying across the chair in Miss 
Ann’s storeroom. 


A BROWN SHAWL 343 


Miss Ann and Miss Rilla had always dressed alike. 
Twenty-three years before, they had both possessed new 
brown shawls with rambling green and blue vines and a 
wide wool fringe. Could it have been their little sister’s 
child who had been wrapped in one of the shawls and car- 
ried to the Moore farmhouse? Could the other shawl have 
been packed away in moth balls at the bottom of a trunk 
in the Baldwin storeroom? 

Then Warner remembered something. Nancy had told 
him, that once, when she was a little girl, she had brought 
eges to the Baldwin home, trailing her old shawl along 
behind her. Miss Ann had jumped between her and old 
Mrs. Baldwin and ordered her around to the back door. 
In the library Miss Rilla had put tender arms around her 
and cried over her. | 

Nancy, then, was the child of Miss Ann’s and Miss Rilla’s 
young sister, the girl who had died “broken-hearted for a 
boy who had hurried home to her but had not lived to reach 
her.” Over twenty years before, O. J. Rineland’s son had 
been killed in a train wreck on the way home from college. 
Mr. Rineland liked Nancy. Mrs. Rineland, his second wife, 
disliked her. 

Nancy, then, Warner realized, was the child of Mr. Rine. 
Jand’s son and Miss Ann’s little sister. 

While old Judge Baldwin’s clock on the stairs was ticking 
off a few brief seconds, all the little pieces of the tragedy 
had shot into their places as neatly as the little pieces of 
colored glass in a kaleidoscope. The finished solution was 
here before Warner’s mind, as palpable as a material sub- 
stance. The amazing thing was that it seemed not to sur- 
prise him. It was as though he had always known it. 

Neither he nor Miss Ann said anything. There was 
nothing but Miss Ann’s harsh crying—as though emotion 
were painful because of long disuse 


344 . THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


From below Nancy’s voice floated up, lovely with laugh- 
ter. Miss Ann, her hand at her torn throat, her austere 
face swollen with tears, turned to Warner. “One does what 
seems best for others,” she said brokenly, almost appeal- 
ingly, as though begging his approval. “My father and 
mother were proud people. It would have killed them. 
Old Dr. Minnish understood this and helped me. I 
stood between my parents and my little sister. Afterwards 
I did what I could to make amends to the child.” She 
was getting control of herself, becoming severe. “When 
my father died ] turned over to the little girl the money 
he left me . . . it was not large but it was all Thad. . . 
and took the boarders.” 

“Warner,” Nancy called up gayly, “are you coming or 
am I deserted at the altar?” 7 

Miss Ann stepped hurriedly over a pile of old pictures 
and put a hand on Warner’s arm. “Promise me some- 
thing... . .” She spoke low, passionately. “Promise me 
you'll be good to Nancy?” . 

Warner Field’s arms went around Miss Ann. He drew 
her to him and kissed her wet, blotched cheek. “As long 
as 1 live . . .” it sounded sacred . . « likea marriage 
. « « “I'll be good to Nancy.” | | 


CHAPTER XXXVI 
AND NOW 


T was several years ago that Warner Field married 

iI Nancy Moore and then went East to tell Mr. Farns- 

worth that the greatest indebtedness in the world is 

the debt of youth to youth and that a promise is big but 
-love is bigger. 

The Fields have two children . . . David and Phyllis. 
David came to Nancy in an agony of body so that she knew 
the intense pain and the relatively great joy of motherhood. 
But Phyllis came to Nancy because of an agony of girlish 
mind. When Phyllis was so tiny that she could scarcely 
comprehend the story, Nancy began to tell her, “I went 
around where there were babies and babies and they all 
looked sweet and nice. But when I came to you with your 
pink fists and your big eyes I said, ‘Here’s my baby.’ You 
see God sent David to me but I went and picked you out 
all by myself.” 

A few summers after their marriage Warner and Nancy, 
who were living East, came to take Aunt Biny back with 
them. They said that she had worked hard all her life 
and now she must stop and take things easy. They wanted 
to do something for her, to dress her in pretty gowns and 
let her be waited upon. 

“No,” said Aunt Biny, “I have to have air and sunlight 
and room.” 

They laughed at her. “We don’t live in jail,” Warner 
told her. 

“There’s a back yard all laid out in symmetrical flower 

345 


346 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE ~ 


beds and it has seats and a little fountain. You'd love it,” 
Nancy explained. : 

“No,” said Aunt Biny. “I’ve got to see long distances.” 

Nancy was ready for that too. “The house is high. From 
one side of it you can see clear across the city. And we 
take wonderful drives.” 

“No,” Aunt Biny was immovable. “I’m grateful to you 
both. No.” She repeated it stubbornly. Then she pointed 
with her crutch. “You see out there . . . just beyond 
the currant bushes this side of the peach trees? Pa and I 
stopped right about in that spot in our wagon years ago. 
It was late afternoon. The sun was low and the prairie 
grass was all a-ripple like a sea. There were wild flowers 
in the grass everywhere . . . red and orange and corn- 
flower blue. They sprinkled it so that the prairie looked 
like figured silk. There wasn’t a thing to be seen besides 
the sky and the grass but some clumps of wild plums and 
the willows and cottonwoods over by Tinkling Creek. When 
we stopped a covey of prairie chickens flew up ahead of us. 
I got out with the baby and looked around. I had brought 
an ivory-handled parasol with me from Indiana and I 
reached in the wagon and got it and stuck it in the ground 
by me. ‘Here’s our home,’ I said to Pa. ‘If we can get 
hold of this piece of land, here we stay. I’m sick of fol- 
lowing the sun. I haven’t got a mite of roving blood in 
me. Here are you and me and the baby . . . and there’s 
the team and the plow and the seed-corn. What more does 
it take to make a home? Here’s as good as anywhere. 
Home is what you make it. And I can start a home right 
here.’ . 

“All right,’ Pa says, ‘I’m willing.’ I guess he was glad 
to have me decide it. It was railroad land. We got the 
whole upper eighty for one hundred and sixty dollars . . .. 
two dollars an acre. Pa had the money in a little tin chest! 


AND NOW 347 


in the wagon.. One of the first ee we e did was to set out 
those maple and cottonwood trees.” 

Nancy and Warner involuntarily looked up at the huge 
trees that towered like the turrets of some medieval castle. 
A hundred homes of wild feathered things clung to them. 
“They were just little saplings that we brought in a wet 
gunny-sack. I’m like one of them. I was planted here 
when they were. My roots extend down in the ground far 
out to the end of the upper eighty and down to Tinkling 
Creek. If you’d pull me up, the life would just naturally 
run out of me and I’d be dried up and limp and useless as 
_a hewn maple. No. . . I’m grateful to you both. But 
I'd rather stay here . .. . where I can look off to the rim 
of the prairie . . . and see the sun go down.” 

They knew it was true. So they left her there where 
she could look off to the rim of the prairie . . . left her 
there until the sun went down. 


Small towns and the surrounding communities do not 
change rapidly in appearance or characteristics. For the 
most part our people are still ordinary commonplace people. 
There has never an extremely rich nor a highly successful 
person gone out from Maple City. And excepting as 
Warner Field, in adopting the community, has brought it 
some claim to recognition, no one famous has ever lived 
in it. 

Maple City is still small and midwestern, which in the 
eyes of many modernists is synonymous for all that is 
hideous and cramping. A handful of people, they say we 
are, knotted together like roots in darkness. Blind souls, 
they call us, struggling spirits who can never find deliver- 
ance from our sordid surroundings. Poor thinkers! Not 
to know that from tangled roots shimmering growth may 
spring to the light in beautiful winged release. 


348 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


There have been a great many changes though among 
the people. Alice Rineland married the new assistant 
cashier in her father’s bank and they live with her parents 
in the big house which draws its skirts up from the dust 
and grime. They have one little sun parlor raised girl 
whose manners are exquisite and whose snobbishness is 
deep. Of late years Alice has become a follower of a 
strange cult which gives her supreme complacency but 
which no one else among the practical women of Maple 
City, busy with unselfish service for others, has had time 
to study. 

Mrs. Rineland is thin and sharp-eyed, rouged and enam- 
eled . . . a withered old woman trying to look gay and 
debonair like a rickety house with new paint and shingles. 
O. J. Rineland is still living, an old man who has had some 
deep sorrows and many disappointments, but whose philos- 
ophy, in spite of them, is fine and sane. His will, neatly 
folded and sealed, lies in a tin box in the vault of the old 
First National. O. J. Rineland’s business is in order se 
that Death may not take him unaware. Most of the prop-— 
erty is to go to Mama and Alice, but there is a codicil in 
which is set aside a sum for Nancy Moore Field. Mr. Rine- 
land added it the Monday that Warner Field came hurriedly 
into the bank to say that he was on his way out to the farm 
to marry Nancy. After Warner had gone the old banker 
went into the vault and got out his will. Then he sat alone 
at his desk in his private office for a long time and remem- 
bered many things: his boy’s youthful love for the little 
Baldwin girl, his college days, the letter that said he was 
coming home, the first news of the wreck, the nightmare 
of suspense, the crushing certainty of loss. Before the 
aching pain, like a huge iron hand on his very body, had 
lifted itself, Ann Baldwin, a figure of stark grief, appear- 
ing one evening at the old house across town and demanding 


AND NOW 349 


to see him alone. Her tragic announcement of her young 
sister's illness. His offer to do anything to help her. . . 
with money . . . advice . . . recognition of the child. . . 
anvthing. Her refusal and her grim and stoic acceptance 
of responsibility. Her last words: “No, I want nothing but 
your silence. I only wanted you to know the truth.” How 
disturbed he was that night and how he had finally told 
Mama that he thought they ought to bring the child home 
and raise it with Alice. How Mama had gone all to pieces 
over the suggestion, and been ill in bed from it. 

Of all these Mr. Rineland thought, that day of Nancy’s 
marriage, and of many other things: How Ann Baldwin 
had carried the child out to Jud and Biny Moore’s and 
how tenderly they had cared for it. How he had watched 
her growth with an infinite yearning to have her for his 
own. How often he had seen his boy in her . . . the 
brown eyes and a gay, jaunty way she had. 

His will lay there before him on the desk. He would have 
liked to recognize Nancy as his own flesh and blood. . . 
to make her an equal heir. But the pride of the Baldwin 
sisters and the pride of Mama and Alice lay between them. 
No, it could not be. We could not do with Life the way 
we wished. Life was more apt to do things with us. For 
a long time he sat there, thinking, and then he picked up 
the pen and wrote: “I set aside this sum for Nancy Moore 
Field, because, of all the little girls who used to play with 
Alice, I liked her best.” 

Walt and Essie have a new house and the latest model of 
tractor and an auto full of little folks. Mattie Thomas 
went to live with Aunt Biny after Walt was married. “Walt 
and Essie are all right to me,” Mattie said, “but there never 
was a roof anywhere . . . not even the Kansas City con- 
vention hall one . . . big enough to cover two families 
without partitions between ’em. The only big one I ever 


350 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


heard of that covered a lot of relations where they didn’t 
fuss was that Westminster Abbey one.” 

The “Bee-House” still has boarders, for “men may come 
and men may go” but eating goes on forever. Miss Ann 
says quite frankly that she will be sixty-two next month and 
Miss Rilla, who thinks a woman’s age is her own business, 
has to acknowledge reluctantly that she will too. Only one 
of the old boarders remains. Major Slack hangs on near 
the head of the table where he settles all questions as 
quickly and definitely as the American guns settled the 
Spanish. 

Mary Mae Gates, in spite of her longing for fame, mar-. 
ried a clothing merchant in her little home town. When a 
great wave of longing comes over her to be singing in 
grand opera, she begins, “Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury 
Cross.” 

Miss Gunn has gone to California to play. Some one 
wrote back that it was quite pathetic, her desire to do funny 
things in the last of her life. Poor Miss Gunn, not to know 
that pleasure and work should be so intermingled that no 
one knows where the one leaves off and the other begins! 

Helen Blakely and Dr. Pearson were married. The doc- 
tor, scientific and immaculate, with a whole office full of 
fierce-looking machinery, goes around to his cases. And 
old Doc Minnish, hands stained with grease, mud on his 
auto, oats in his pocket, goes around to his. A few of the 
patients of each die and most of them get well, which does 
not prove anything. 

Marty Spencer, although older in years, is still unmarried, 
flitting about lightly, sipping at the tips of the blossoms of 
pleasure. . 

George and Genevieve Kendall married other people. 
George is fairly contented, but Genevieve has surprisingly — 
found her second husband also not flawless. 


AND NOW \ BST 


Elsa Carlson is in New York. She changed her name to 
Elise D’Arlsone and works in an establishment where they 
charge fabulous sums to make fat ladies look merely plump. 

The Carlsons and the Swansons still live side by side, 
complaining and excusing, quarreling and forgiving . . . 
the big issues of life clouded by chicken-sized shadows. 

Aunt Biny kept her “rendezvous with Death” and Uncle 
Jud. During her last sickness she spoke of going away 
as casually and pleasantly as though she were taking the 
six-fifteen. One grew to think of it as a physical journey. 
Once she said wistfully to Nancy, “I wish I could take Pa 
some of the Jonathan apples from the tree at the far end 
of the orchard.” Grant that Uncle Jud’s and Aunt Biny’s 
heaven is not one of shining streets and golden harps and 
many mansions! Make it, Lord, quite humble, and near a 
meadow where a thrush sings at evening in the maples! 

On account of Warner’s work, he and Nancy spend most 
of the year in the East but in the summer they bring the 
children and come back to the farm that came to them 
through Uncle Jud’s will. Mattie runs the farm and finds 
great pleasure in trying to outdo Walt with her own crops. 
When she gets the letter from the Fields giving the date 
on which they will arrive she lays it aside and hurries, 
balloonlike, out to the kitchen and gets down all eleven 
cookbooks. 

Warner and Nancy are fond of the farm. Every morning 
they see the sun rise over the rolling hills and at night they 
watch it slip back of the rim of the prairie. Warner Field 
writes of the mid-west. He does not credit it with having 
in its air either the crispness of the mountains or the salt 
tang of the sea . . . nor will he discredit the sorcery of 
the odors of loam and sod and subsoil, of dewy clover, 
and ripening corn and the honey-sweetness of lavender 
alfalfa. He does not pretend that it is idyllic . . . nor 


302 3 THE RIM OF THE PRAIRIE 


will he speak of it as bleak and uninteresting. He does 
not assert that it has attained to great heights of culture 
and art. . . nor will he sell it for thirty pieces of silver, 
But in some way Warner Field catches in his writings the 
gleam of the soul of the wide prairie, dim and deep and 
mysterious. For here, as everywhere, drama ebbs and 
flows like the billowing of the seas of yellow wheat. 

There is one other thing you. will want to know. Did 
Warner ever tell Nancy about the interview with Miss Ann 
in the storeroom? And this is the answer: 

Last summer the Field children swept out the old cabin 
for a playhouse. They arranged the chairs and the braided 
rag rugs, put a bouquet of elderberry blossoms on the table 
and some broken dishes in the cupboard. Then they tried 
to open the drawer underneath the cupboard but it would 
not open. With masculine philosophy David gave up, but 
with feminine ingenuity Phyllis dug a hairpin into the lock 
and then a buttonhook and after that a screw-driver. And 
when not one of these had any effect, she went to the door 
and called: “Father, come help us get this drawer open 

. will you?” | 

Warner, who was crossing the lane road by the cotton- 
woods, came to the little house and stood in the doorway. 
As he watched his children working with the old lock, 
he thought of many things: of Alice and her mother in the 
big house on the hill, of Miss Ann and Miss Rilla in the 
old decaying “Bee-House”’ behind the maples and of Uncle 
Jud and Aunt Biny in their little narrow houses under the 
leaves. But most of all he thought of Nancy and the joy 
of living that was hers. 

“No... let it be,” he said with finality, “let the drawer 


stay locked.” 
(14) 


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